The Two Fawns
by WinterSnowFaerie
Summary: People that can breathe fire? Check. People that can hop from one end of a building to another? Check. Read on about Nara Yoshiko who may or may not like the lifestyle of a ninja... especially being an Academy student then a Genin and finally a Chunin. Watch as she attempts to use logic for learning ninja techniques, something that may or may not be a success.
1. Chapter 1

Naruto Fanfic: Self-Insert  
The Two Fawns:

Chapter 1: Enter Nara Yoshiko

Dying was not going to be painless. She had very much hope that she can die a peaceful and painless death; preferably in her sleep and surrounded with many grandchildren and children, long after her retirement as an architect, the dream job that she had wanted. Life was short and she was not going to deny it, however she hadn't expected it to be that short.

Her death had not been pretty. She had been weigh and looked nothing but a bag of skin and bones along with patches of hair on her head. Basically a walking corpse. A ghost and fragment of the girl that once occupied that body. A girl on the chubby side with her bright green eyes and flaming red hair and most importantly her large carefree smile.

Her parents had always been there to remind her how beautiful she was, how fast she was going to recover from this and go back to school. Yet she knew they were lying to themselves as she lay bedridden in the hospital with her mother quitting her well paying job as a doctor to be her personal nurse and caretaker. Her brother John had been the best support of all, he had not been over optimistic about her condition, but he had instead made her forget about the horrible pain in her bones, the ache that slowly grew to the point where she would pass out from it. He told her stories of the many things he would do at the boy's school he attended and at home when not visiting her. It made her feel normal and good about herself again. At least no one was showing her pity that she didn't want.

Her death was not going to be painless in the sense that she had been anticipating it for months. Not knowing which day she would not get to see John's smiling face again took its toll on her. Not knowing when she won't wake up to hear her mother sooth her to sleep again pained her. Not knowing how her father would take to her death... God bless that man's soul, he had been the most optimistic about her, never wavering in his faith and hope that she would one day spend her mornings walking in the park with him like she did before, laughing and talking like the good old days. Before her fight with cancer that began four years ago.

The cancer had spread to her lungs already with little to no hope of survival for her. She longed for death's embrace to end her misery but she deny death for she wished dearly for more time with her small family. It was not fair. No one had said life was fair. Time was ticking away in her hourglass. It was time to go...

At least there was one good thing about her dying at this time, she will be able to spare her family the pain of watching her eyes close for the last time. Under her pillow was the diary she had left for them, a record of her meager time spent with them as a sister and a daughter. She decided that they should only keep the happy memories of her, hence she kept smiling till the very end...

As Jean's heart stopped its fruitless struggle and gave in at last to the clutches of death, the monitor gave a dull beep. Jean Lynn Owens was dead at exactly 3:03 am on 18 December 2015, three days before her nineteenth birthday.

~Page Break~

The baby wailed in her crib waking the other baby in the crib as well. Cheeks soon became red from exertion and her little lungs burned from all the screaming. Her brother the other baby soon followed, brawling loudly in their nursery. Their screams echoed through the whole residence, attracting the attention of its inhabitants.

Shikaku Nara heard the shrill wailing of his little girl first. Her screams were of a higher pitch and was a tiny bit softer than her brother's. Soon both babies were wailing at the top of their lungs. Shikaku wondered what was wrong again as he excused himself from his game of shogi with Choza. Shikaku would often leave his two little children to his wife Yoshino to handle, however with Yoshino in the Yamanaka flower shop and the fact that he would be in hot soup with her if she finds him with two crying babies meant that he had to pacify them. How troublesome...

There was one problem. He had almost no idea how to stop a baby's tirade much less to say two babies' tirade. He often left it to Yoshino when they are on a their drama time which were rare isolated incidents with Shikamaru not bothering to cry, apparently the infant had found it a waste of energy or some sorts to cry. Yoshiko was naturally easily placated with him or Yoshino carrying her.

Sighing, Shikaku braced himself as he entered the nursery. Picking up Yoshiko first, he rocked her gently against his chest and stroked her back in an attempt to calm her down. Gradually, Yoshiko wails turned to soft whimpers and eventually the baby turned her round brown eyes up to face him. She cooed at him, in her way for calling for his attention. Meanwhile Shikamaru rolled back and promptly fell asleep.

"Papa" the baby had blurted out, but sounded rather unsure of herself like she was testing the sounds in her throat. Shikaku could say he was elated for Shikamaru's first word had been 'sleep'; something that he felt rather suited his son. But girls are supposed to be a lot more sensitive and knowing Yoshiko who latched on to him like a shadow, she was definitely closer to him that her namesake and mother, something his wife had refused to admit when Inoichi jokingly pointed out during a gathering at his home.

"Papa... Papa..." The baby girl had mumbled before she wandered off to gurgling at him with her baby language which Shikaku could hardly began to comprehend. Sensing that she was not going to go back to sleep, unlike Shikamaru whose eyes were closed Yoshiko's eyes were wide awake and was now wiggling in his grasp in her restlessness.

"Aren't you a rather energetic one." He mused. The baby cooed back at him before kicking her little pudgy legs harmlessly at him. An energetic Nara, rare for a whole family of laid back individuals; then again he had to consider the fact that she was a girl and most likely girls have a different type of energy as compared to boys.

~Page Break~

Now Jean was unsure of how and where she was. For a long time she was surrounded by blurry shapes and dim lights; seriously people who told her that dying meant going to Heaven and meeting angels were lying. First, she had not met the said angels who were supposed to be majestic beings with glowing wings and all sorts of things. Second, she was not in Heaven because the Bible did mention something about a gate in Heaven to go pass according to someone when they visited her in the hospital. Third, that person had mentioned that Heaven was where one would feel at peace with themselves and Jean was certainly not at peace with herself.

She opened her mouth to question and ask like the inquisitive student she was; she was the teacher's pet and the unofficial leader of the Geeks Club, she always find asking question and taking action later a crucial quality to have. Of course she wouldn't be able to recall her classmates' names or teacher's for that matter. Which idiot would jump head first into a problem without first analyzing it anyway. Common sense will tell them not to but not too commonly found in many people.

However, her vocal cords seemed incapable of making any speech at all. Instead of 'where am I', it came out as some sort of gurgling sound. Great, now I sound like a freaking baby! She attempted to vocalize her question only to have the same thing happening again. To say that she was pissed was an understatement. She let out a loud cry of frustration only to have it sound like a baby's cry.

"What the hell is going on! Bloody piece of shit!" Jean hardly cursed but this was one occasion where she can curse her lungs out and nobody would notice. It meant no Mom to go 'your language, young lady!' Speaking of Mom, she kind of missed her but the memories of her past family was now blurry at the best. She can remember Dad and John along with her cat Jay and some of the normal things she often did with them but not a lot of things.

Unfortunately for her, the cursing went unnoticed but the sounds that followed from her attempts were noticed by her neighbor next to her. Squinting her eyes and willing it for her to see, she found herself sitting no sleeping next to a baby! A baby!

I'm the same sized as the freaking baby! As the reality of the situation set in quickly like being dunked into to a bucket of ice water, she started to freak out like how most people will react to a totally unworldly situation. "FUCK!" Oops, that came out a bit too loud and the baby next to her started brawling as well. Like all babies' inborn reaction, Jean too started to cry, surprising herself at the level of childishness that she happen to possess. Reincarnation was not fun at all...

Just then, she felt herself being lifted up by two rather strong arms. Definitely stronger than the health nut that was my dad. Strangely rather than recoiling from the sensation of being lifted up into the air, she kind of liked it. Hence her cursing stopped and the crying soon reduced into little hiccups. She felt secure with this pair of arms like the person was a safe place for her to be in. Snuggling in, she looked for a comfortable place to lay her head in. With all that wire meshing the man wore on himself she had expected herself to be accidentally scratched; but it had been rather comfortable as they were definitely made of thin wire wrapped around by rolls of cloth.

Turning her head up took a lot of trouble. Unlike the pre illness Jean with a strong healthy body and muscles from daily jogging by her dad, a baby's muscles were not well developed and hence she tried, note the tried to lift her head to look at the man. She ended failing quite badly until the man kind of helped her out a little by propping her up when she made some noises at him. But she decided to coo at him to make sure she doesn't get back to that bed.

Being a baby wasn't fun at all. Eat and sleep basically constitutes her daily schedule. Being a nineteen year old mentally meant that she had needed to be entertained with other things. Like for example, she is supposed be reading or playing with her tabby cat Jay.

Hence she tried attracting the attention of the man. "Papa... Papa." This man must be her father in this lifetime. Well she didn't mind looking like he did. Jet black hair tied into a ponytail, tanned skin (she never gotten that type of tan without accidentally burning herself to look like a lobster instead of that golden bronze tone) and almond shaped dark eyes paired with sharp features.

She saw the man's features twisting into a smile. Yes yes... Take me out. She tried to move to signal the wish to get out of the nursery by climbing up the man's shoulder but succeeded with only a mere wiggle. Curse it, it hadn't seem like baby muscles are that weak. No doubt she can crawl but climbing like a monkey took a little too much out of her.

"Aren't you a rather energetic one." The man chuckled at her rather futile attempts to climb up his shoulders. She turned to glare at him, well attempt to cause babies cannot glare to save their lives. She must have looked stupid trying to glare at a fully grown man.

"Take that new father!" She hissed at him, however it came out like a baby's coo. She kicked her little legs at him, a rather juvenile behavior but she cannot help it.

She regretted it instantly. Kicking the man's stomach had felt like kicking a rock. Ouch ouch. That hurt like a bitch! Who on earth would train their muscles to feel like rocks rather than flesh. Or perhaps it must be her little soft legs' problem.

But she had to begrudgingly admit that the man was a lot better than her new mother who would croon at her with her friends and tie numerous pink ribbons into her hair. And her screaming at her father was just plain scary. She understood the language that they spoke - Japanese; it hadn't been that hard since she took Japanese classes in middle school and high school and she had been one of the few kids in the class that bothered to listen and take down as much notes as she could. She is what one can call competent in the language; yes she can hold a conversation and read with it, but no she cannot go through difficult poetry or literature texts without her English-Japanese Dictionary. She got through the tests fine and she was not in AP Japanese Class so that had been okay for her. Not the best but decent.

The man carried her out to some sort of living room where there were two other men. One had red hair, a fat figure and strange purple markings on his cheeks. The other was a lot normal with a medium skin tone and blonde hair but the weird part came in when he had an extremely long ponytail that would make all the cheerleaders green with envy.

The man wait her new father, placed her on his lap while he carried on with some sort of weird chess game. Oh no way in hell is she going to be ignored! Again, she wiggled furiously hoping to get his attention again. He continued with his game like nothing was happening.

She had traded a boring situation for another boring situation. She tried her very best to resist the urge of rolling her eyes at the obviously oblivious adults. She almost tried getting their attention again. But she resisted the temptation to do so. Babies start talking at nine months or so.

She was supposed to be around nine months old. Babies are not supposed to be that sharp around adults. She not supposed to be able to tell that they were trying to carry on with their game. The game seemed interesting but only if she see it being played. All she could see from her angle was the table top! Looking around she saw that blonde man was not really playing the game. An opening!

As sneakily as she could, well a baby could; she crawled over to blonde man. It was embarrassingly tiring for her. Although her logical side had reasoned that it was probably due to her not well developed muscles, the other side of her had taken it quite badly.

~Page Break~

Inoichi was not very good with children. That much was proven with his daughter preferring the company of his wife as compared to him. Ino had been quite clingy towards her mother. According to his wife, he was holding Ino wrongly hence getting the rejection from his daughter.

Ino had been spoilt by him, according to his teammates and wife. However he could see the same being done to Yoshiko with Shikaku being willing to bring her out of the nursery during her assigned nap time. The pot calling the kettle black as usual. Shikaku had always assume women were delicate and gentle; perhaps with little Yoshiko, his perception may change or become deeply enforced in him.

He was pleasantly surprised when the said little girl crawled towards him after crawling away from Shikaku who was as usual busy with his Shogi game. It was quite cute seeing the little baby's large brown eyes looking at him almost hopefully to carry her. It was with that type of eyes that prompted Inoichi to give Ino that extra dango after dinner that she was not supposed to have. She hadn't had the effect that Ino had on him; but a baby was still a baby and Inoichi could not decline a baby's demands.

Picking the baby up was not difficult but holding her had been hard. Inoichi was used to using his death grip on enemy shinobi. Despite softening his touch to suit a baby's and not harming a baby, most babies didn't like to be carried like that. The child had been more interested in climbing on his shoulders with her clawing his shoulders and slipping repeatedly. Hearing the baby give a huff of frustration, he helped her up. It must have been a strange sight, a baby perched on a grown man's shoulder and observing a Shogi game although she must be clueless on what was going on in the game.

Soon enough, the baby grew bored and by her wiggling; Inoichi assumed she meant to tell him to let her down. Holding her gently, he placed her on the tatami covered wooden floors. Sure enough she crawled towards some colorful threads that Yoshino had possibly forgot to keep. Grabbing the threads with her little hands; the baby managed to tie a rather loose knot after multiple attempts of having the strings twisted all the wrong way. Inoichi helped her along and watched her carefully in the event that she accidentally gets herself tangled in string. Inoichi will cut the strings if she become trapped in them but he was worried that the little girl might kick up a fuss if he did that.

His worries had been quite unfounded as the baby did something that surprised him to no end. The baby having got the hang of tying a knot started to knot the strings in various groups of three and started to braid the strings! Braiding will be stretching it a little but she was making some sort of patterns with her strings by finding a definite repeat pattern after numerous tries of looping the strings and with Inoichi's help of untying all the unnecessary knots.

~Page Break~

"Shikaku Nara what are you doing!" A familiar voice of Yoshino screeched. The said man jumped up from his Shogi and looked around for his daughter only to have Inoichi shushed him and beckon him towards where his daughter was sitting at. The sight gave him a rather pleasant surprise.

Yoshiko seemed to have an inert ability for systematic methods and approaches. Unlike Shikamaru who had excelled at solving the simple cube games (when he can get him to do it without that Shikaku had given with methods that he had not taught him yet; Yoshiko seemed to be a lot more interested in figuring out a pattern than solving the root problem by itself.


	2. Chapter 2

The Two Fawns:  
Chapter 2: Life and Welcome to the Academy

Playing with her older brother Shikamaru had been kind of difficult. The boy had been a lot more interested in sleeping than playing or anything for that matter. Despite his lazy facade Shikamaru, Yoshiko had found was incredibly smart. Back in her old world he would be the next coming of a science prodigy. (Yes, old world. Jean placed the pieces of the puzzle together; this place was swarming with some sort of ninja who can hop from roof to roof that will put most acrobats to shame, they can throw sharp stars at wall targets with deadly accuracy that will make many archers back home cry, they can breathe fire and vanish with a puff of smoke that will make the magicians green with envy)

Luckily for her with such a smart twin brother, appearing to be slightly more mature beyond her years hadn't seemed suspicious with a family famed for their intellect levels. She was not immune to childish behavior though. Smart might be scratching the surface with the crazily complex methods her father can come with in terms of strategies. She concluded that her father must be some sort of person in charge of the military strategies with men hopping into her house late at night sometimes. She was sure they can sense her presence but they hadn't paid her much heed; with the adults talking her mother would often ask her to help her serve the tea or snacks. She often ran rather than walk away from them. Cowardly but something screamed danger to her when they were around. Shikamaru hadn't really showed much interest in pretty much anything, often choosing to sleep instead or look at the clouds from their shared bedroom.

She became rather close to her father since she often questioned him on the many different herbs that grew in the forest surrounding their clan grounds. The curiosity in her was like a kid in a candy store when she found all the different types of Nara herbs as well as the many books on the herbs and the mixtures to counteract many poisons and the making of a whole new variety of poisons. Her father was a really patient man who helped her out with the samples gathering. She likes to experiment with the different herbs, mixing them to got a new concoction with her father's help and counteracting the basic poisons.

Being part of the Medical Corps required high intelligence, great chakra control and a lot of knowledge on different herbs, healing seals and the different medical equipment. Sealing and medical journals was a little too advance for her at the moment (she's always on top of the class for Biology but that did little to help her understand those scrolls), hence working on herbs and chakra control was her few options.

She would often wait till the weekends before asking him for his company. Shikamaru would spend time with their father by playing Shogi with him before dinner. (She would sometimes join in on the side of her twin but despite his sharp mind filled with fresh tactics and her analytical skills, they were no match for their father.)

Currently she was waiting in the Jonin Standby Station with her mother for her father to be done for the afternoon to bring him lunch. There were other Jonins or Chunins around: some were smoking in the room, some were in the middle of some sort of conversation, some were busy reading and some were snacking away. She became closer to her mother via helping preparing the family's lunch and dinner. Well being a five year old, her mother didn't exactly trusted her with knives or hot things, she was often allowed to arrange her father's bento or the fruits or mochi that were to be served as dessert. Shikamaru was currently at home taking a nap again.

She had made the bento into a shape of a bunny with leaves of lettuce surrounding the bunny that was made of rice. Her mother had made omelette that became a bow tie for the bunny, the broiled tuna was placed at the other side of the bento in another leaf of cabbage. The dessert that was homemade mochi was in another bento that was meant to be given to the other occupants of the room as well.

The other Jonins were lack of another word- slightly intimidating. It hadn't helped that Yoshiko was a lot shorter than them and they were all dressed in full gear. Her mother had wanted her to be less antisocial around her father colleagues since she had a really funny habit of darting away like a frightened bunny when they were around.

Looking around she picked the easiest option. One Chunin was busy eating syrup in the room and he was the least scary of the five occupants she can see and one of the younger ones as well. With her mother pushing her gently forward; she walked carefully towards the Chunin.

"Umm..." She let her presence be known to the Chunin although she was sure any Chunin worth his rank can tell that she can coming.

"Yes?" He looked from temporarily from his syrup.

"Oji-san would you like some mochi?" Most likely he was not that much older than her but the word Oji-san came first rather than Nii-san.

Luckily for her, the Chunin had not really noticed her rather funny way of addressing him, instead he was looking through the rainbow arranged mochi. She had arranged them all in seven colors with the white ones being the clouds at the foot of the rainbow colored ones. That Chunin definitely has a sweet tooth.

"It's Kotetsu, little fragrance." He had sure to slow down his name when speaking it. Okay he did notice it. Nicking two white mochi, he quickly popped them in his mouth while the four year old looked at him incredulously.

Little Fragrance? What sort of nickname was that? Till it dawned on Yoshiko, her name meant fragrance. No wonder her mother had always made sure that she smelt like flowers by placing lilies or roses or any flowers with scents in her hair. For the moment, she had bunches of baby breaths woven into her bun to match with the white dress she was currently wearing that had the Nara Clan symbol sewn onto one of her sleeves.

After Kotetsu, most of the other Chunins and Jonins had been quite easy to approach after her practice with him. Pass them the box of mochi, wait for them to pick a couple and move on. She learnt quite a few names while passing them the mochi: Genma, Asuma, Raido, Izumo, Gai and Kakashi.

"Oh Yoshiko!" Her father had finally finished his work. Yoshiko ran up to her father and gave him the bento with a slight grin. That bento had taken longer than usual with all that extra effort she had to put in to decorating it.

~Page Break~

His little daughter had made it a point to visit him along with her mother everyday during lunch while Shikamaru awaits their game of Shogi back home. Shikaku wondered what kind of shinobi they would both grow up to be. Shikamaru was extremely lazy but a natural genius when he sets his mind to it. Yoshiko was clever but she hardly wish to voice her opinions, preferring to go with the flow. Seems like both his children had inherited the Nara trait of being extremely passive. Yet they can be quite tenacious when they have a clear goal in mind: Shikamaru wanting to beat him in Shogi and Yoshiko wanting to become a medical ninja by the direct route of joining the Medical Corps.

Shikaku had signed the twins up for the Academy. Knowing Yoshiko, she will be hiding behind books during the break times while Shikamaru would either accompany his sister or take a nap. Though Shikamaru was the older twin by a few minutes; he hadn't seen the situation where the younger sibling would tag along the older sibling, Yoshiko had been rather independent. Shikamaru too seemed to trust that Yoshiko can handle herself.

Shikaku had not introduced his children to Ino or Chouji yet as he preferred the duo to make friends with the other two children on their own accord. Friends made with little interference from the parents often last the longest. Judging from Shikamaru's character he will get along fine with the other two children; Yoshiko however may get along better with the elder Uchiha kid with their shared interest in books and dango, that would be if Yoshiko is in the mood to speak to Itachi. Unfortunately, that boy will not be in the academy being a newly made Chunin. Shikamaru and Yoshiko had not been social butterflies; it took his wife a lot of energy to get his little girl to interact with his colleagues as it would seem from the skittish behavior displayed by Yoshiko.

Yoshiko had fallen silent next to him, her nose buried within the depths of a book on chakra control. It was a simple book; it was supposed to be an Academy Level instruction book with a lot of colorful drawings on Chakra that she will be learning in three years. Shikaku saw no problem with Yoshiko's interest on Chakra; he had been teaching his two children the Shadow Possession Technique for the past few weeks after a tree walking exercise and water walking exercise. Yoshiko had taken chakra control training like fish to water however, she had run into quite a lot of problems with the Shadow Possession while Shikamaru had not been really bothered by the level of difficulty in the jutsu except his chakra control was not as good as his sister's.

Shikaku had encouraged Yoshiko to practice the basic jutsu for the Nara Clan more often, but only in the presence of a trained adult which was him or Yoshino. Shikamaru and Yoshiko had fared quite well in Taijutsu training, decent but he wouldn't call them experts in that form of ninja art, in an Academy class they would be able to pass decently but they won't last a minute with a trained ninja.

Once he finished his lunch, both his wife and daughter waved to him before departing for home. That reminded him, he was supposed to get their ninja gear ready for tomorrow! He had forgotten all about it, Yoshino had been reminding him all week about it. He doubt Yoshino had no backup packs but he did not wish to get his ears chewed off when he gets home.

~Page Break~

"Shika tomorrow we will be in the Academy. What do you think they will make us do?" Yoshiko was currently resting in their shared futon with Shikamaru and her looking up at the ceiling.

"Knowing you, no one can make you do anything. Hmm... The academy... What a drag..." Shikamaru yawned before turning to face his twin. Yoshiko was close to her twin, that she can say with sharing a room with him and a womb with him for nine months, she can quite comfortably say that she can predict most of his reactions and read him better than most. But she will never be the one whom her brother will spill his guts to and knowing her brother, he needed a friend that could understand him even better than she could.

"And knowing you, you will put in minimal effort for everything since its a waste of your time." She smirked at him.

Shikamaru chuckled, "yeah little sis, seems like we both rather understand each other. But I still think that you are like mom. Night."

"Night." Yoshiko turned to her usual spot on the futon and promptly fell asleep.

The two Nara children slept comfortably in their soft bed with the windows open that showed the many stars shining bright outside and the gentle glow of the moon. Konoha was seemingly asleep as well. It was a peaceful night for the Nara twins with neither caring that they would soon be entering the Academy for the first time in a few hours.

~Page Break~

"Good Morning  
Good Morning  
We've talked the whole night through  
Good Morning  
Good Morning to you  
Good Morning  
Good Morning  
It's great to stay up late  
Good Morning  
Good Morning to you  
When the band began to play the stars were shinging bright  
Now the milkman's on his way and it's too late to say good night  
So, Good Morning  
Good Morning  
Sun beams will soon smile through  
Good Morning  
Good Morning to you and you and you and you  
Good Morning  
Good Morning  
We've gabbed the whole night through  
Good Morning  
Good Morning to you"

The alarm blared at the twins along with the loud singing of their mother who was currently knocking something against her frying pan. Shikamaru groaned, turned and rolled deeper into the blankets. Yoshiko too had the same idea where she burrowed into the blankets with her head being non-existent from the exposed side of the futon.

"Wake up! It's time for your first day at the Academy!" Yoshino shouted brightly. Well her two children surely favored their father with their very Shikaku style of avoiding mornings; by hiding in the blankets and continuing to snooze. Unfortunately, Yoshino was extremely experienced at handling people who cannot wake up in the morning.

She drew back the curtains, exposing the sun to hear the hissing all to similar to a cat's that was Yoshiko under the blankets before a very disheveled Yoshiko crawled towards the bathroom. Yoshiko was easy, she can never sleep with the lights on. Shikamaru however was another story.

"How troublesome..." Came the reply to her in the blankets.

"Shikamaru Nara!" With a slight pull, Yoshino pulled out the blankets that covered her son's curled up form. Yet Shikamaru persisted and continued his stand on the futon. Holding a small garden watering can, Yoshino poured a small amount of water accurately onto Shikamaru's face. That woke him up.

Shikamaru made a beeline for the bathroom after hastily wiping his face on the blankets to avoid his mother's screeching in the morning. A woman's screaming was definitely not welcomed in the peacefulness of a perfectly beautiful morning!

~Page Break~

Within a short period of thirty minutes the two Nara siblings were sitting on their respective places for breakfast. Breakfast was simply rice, miso soup, seaweed, tofu and some egg rolls. Shikamaru gave a yawn. He had been able to catch forty winks while his sister was being pulled into the room to be dressed up for school.

Shikamaru secretly pitied his sister. The look of horror on her face when she was forced into yet another red dress was positively comical. Red had been their mother's favorite color and it obviously was not his sister's. The dress was indeed pretty, but the amount of time spent to get into it was not worth the trouble.

Shikamaru had thankfully been spared from the clothing torture since he had quickly slipped himself into a simple blue shirt and grey shorts. His father had visible cringed when he was yelled at by his mother by forgetting to buy a set of training senbon for them. Well senbon was Yoshiko's preferred weapon, but she won't really care if there were no senbon. That man was a hen-pecked husband, something his father will never admit but that fact was glaringly obvious to both himself and his sister. Women, what a drag...

Shikamaru signed again. Oh man, so his little sister would have to play doll for his mother from now on. Pity she's a girl. When they were done for breakfast, their father held their hands and brought them to the Academy since it was near his workplace along with the two carrying their too big lunches with them.

~Page Break~

The classroom was noisy and in the state of utter chaos. Yoshiko hadn't really liked it. Noise and her never mix well. Her father had registered their names for the Academy and promptly left them to their new sensei Iruka.

Iruka was nice with his wide friendly smile, Yoshiko could sense warmth in his chakra with no sense of danger in it. Unlike other Jonins who have an edge of danger in their chakras no matter how friendly their chakra had been in their state of ease (Kakashi's chakra had been fuzzy and felt a bit like static, Gai's had been solid like a block of concrete, Asuma's was quick moving and slightly on the hot side, Anko's was fiery and unrelenting), Iruka was bright and warm like the sun. Yoshiko had been learning how to sense chakra from the books she had found in her father's study a few months ago when he began to teach them how to control their chakra. Sensory skills had been quite easy to master with her father's help. Concentrating chakra in her mind before sourcing out for other forms of chakras had been the basis of sensory skills. First stage is to be able to identify familiar sources of chakra in front of her. She cannot track people yet nor identify people by their chakra but she can definitely sense their differences when they are around her hence she was around half way through the first stage of sensory skills.

Shikamaru had opted to sit next to an Akimichi boy at the back of the classroom with an Inuzuka boy and his white puppy. Yoshiko looked around the seats with girls. There was a girl sitting alone on the second row.

"May I sit here?" She asked the girl. She must be another one of the clan kids. Hyuga definitely with those classic white eyes.

"Y-yes." The girl gave a slight stutter. Yoshiko sat down on the seat next to the girl with short dark blue hair.

"I'm Nara Yoshiko." She held out a hand. Get the introductions done and over with, plus she felt that the girl can be a great friend from the book on herbs she was reading before she came to her. Another fan of botany.

"H-hyuga Hinata, n-nice to meet you N-nara-san." Hinata held her hand out for Yoshiko to shake. They were dressed completely in opposites. Hinata was in a cream sweater and pants along with the protective wire meshing as her inner layer with her short dark blue hair neatly combed. Yoshiko was in a dark red dress with the same protective wire meshing under her dress and her long brown hair was tied into two pigtails held by red ribbons.

Hinata appeared to be the type that didn't mind the peace and quiet, hence Yoshiko grabbed her book and started to continue her reading. She was on the topic of using everyday plants to treat burns when Iruka called for the class to pay attention while he called their names. Yoshiko paid the man no heed as she continued to read her book pausing only to raise her hands when he called for Nara Yoshiko after Shikamaru had predictably half-heartedly raised his hand when his name was called.

It was only when he started his introduction to the Academy, Yoshiko placed her book away and gave him her attention. The first day of the Academy was going really slow with a basic intro to the different types of ninja tools that a ninja would use. A Kunai and a shuriken, how to use them and the target practices that they will be having. Yoshiko knew that they will not be allowed to handle real weapons till their last year before graduation but it would do no harm for her to ask her father to start changing her blunt weapons for his sharp ones a year or two before graduation.

Hinata too paid attention to Iruka during his explanations. Iruka demonstrated a couple of times by illustrating on the white board the methods and directions to throw the Shuriken to hit the target the right way. Apparently throwing the shuriken at a 45 degree angle would ensure that the target hits the right point, that was information that Yoshiko had not known from her numerous practices with her father. Her father had allowed her to practice on her own, only stepping in when she is in the risk of stabbing herself with a kunai or cutting herself with the shuriken. He had told her to figure out how to throw the shuriken. Kunai had been easy, a 90 degree throw for maximum accuracy. Shuriken however was a lot trickier. Grabbing her pencil, she quickly wrote down the tips that Iruka gave for the shuriken.

After that lecture, the bell rang for lunch time. The lesson had went on smoothly without much trouble or drama. Her other table partner was a boy with dark hair, pale skin and onyx eyes. She hadn't really took much notice of him since he probably entered after she had sat down with Hinata; she didn't really take note of his presence.

Opening her lunchbox, she almost signed at the sheer amount of food that was present. Obviously her mother had expected her to share her lunch with her newfound friends. Ugh there was so much tomatoes and so few dango! The cherry tomatoes were acting as the tops of the mushrooms on her bento. She hated the tomatoes, she could get Shikamaru to eat them for her. There was no way she was wasting her food or risk getting screeched and nagged at but she didn't want to intrude on her brother on his afternoon nap. It would be awkward for her if he didn't awake.

Oh well... Yoshiko flipped her book open again to last page she stopped on. She didn't really flip the page with her hands but instead she made use of the chakra strings to flip the page. Unnecessary but it totally forces her to work on controlling her chakra, too little chakra will not have the page move at all, too much chakra will tear the page. Plus she often gets paper cuts, flipping the book with chakra was a lot better.

"That's good chakra control." The unknown boy piped up.

"What? Me?" She hadn't noticed him next to her. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. The boy had not moved from his spot on the seat next to her. Hinata was busy with her book.

"Yeah. I see Itachi nii-san doing it with his sword sometimes. I haven't seen anyone doing it while reading before though. I'm Uchiha Sasuke." He grinned before handing out his hand.

"Itachi? The Uchiha genius? Heard of him from father but I didn't know he was your older brother. I'm Nara Yoshiko. I'm glad to meet you Uchiha-san." This boy seem nice. It was highly amusing that he puffed up his chest up when she addressed him the same way she would have address Itachi. She held his hand in a light handshake.

"What book are you reading Nara-san?" Sasuke was definitely a lot more chattier than Hinata. Yoshiko found herself at ease with this boy who too enjoy reading although his main hobbies were training and taking walks in the forests surrounding Konoha.

"Really?! There are wildcats in the forests?" That was new. Wildcats were hardly found in Konoha. Apparently they like mountainous ranges and the mountains that Konoha had were the mountain holding the faces of the Hokages.

"Yeah. Nii-san found a few of the orphaned kittens and had to take care of them in the Uchiha Compound. The litter had recognized his scent and decided to follow him everywhere." Sasuke had a high regard for his older brother, almost everything he talked about involved Itachi one way or another.

Sasuke sounded quite delighted to have made his first friend in the Academy. His father had told him specifically to mix with the other clan children; he had thought it would be really hard but Yoshiko was quite easy-going. Except she likes her books too much but Sasuke didn't mind the periods of silence where she would be reading. At least he was being given her fullest attention when he spoke to her. Itachi was always the only thing on his father's mind with Itachi being the future head of the Uchiha Clan. He found himself liking it to be referred to as Uchiha-san by associates but he would preferred a close friend to call him by his given name.

Yoshiko continued speaking with Hinata as well as sharing her lunch with the shy girl and Sasuke. Sasuke had been quite delighted to find that many tomatoes in her lunchbox hence offering to trade her tomatoes for his sweets that he apparently didn't enjoy.

Lunch went by quite quickly for the Nara twins; one taking a nap on his desk while the other was busy exchanging her tomatoes for sweets and giving a certain Uchiha a little too much food, not that the other boy complained since he particularly enjoyed the many cherry tomatoes he had gotten while discussing different herbal mixtures used by the Hyuga and the Nara.

When it was time for them to go back home, their father was waiting by the gates for them. Yoshiko made a quick beeline for her father while Shikamaru trotted behind slowly.

"How was your day?" Shikaku asked the twins as they both held on to each of his hand. Shikaku did see his son making friends with Choza's son and Tsume's son while his daughter was talking to Hiashi's daughter and Fugaku's son.

He nodded in acknowledgement to the various clan leaders when they arrived to pick their children, with most of the clan children mixing together would mean a potential political alliance with the various clans in the future.

The younger Uchiha had comically forgotten to return Yoshiko her picture book, running up to him, the young Uchiha had turned a shade of crimson before handing his daughter her book with a small bow and a mumbled 'Nara-sama'.

Shikamaru was walking in a slow leisurely pace and staring at the sky while Yoshiko was looking around her and observing the shop keepers closing down their stores for the day. He wasn't really expecting an answer anyway, plus his wife would be the one bombarding them for answers. He rather have some peace and quiet with his two children before getting home.

Of course, almost nothing will ever go according to Shikaku's plan. One of the shopkeepers had been making a loud commotion, attracting the attention of Yoshiko while Shikamaru simply tagged along with his sister when she suddenly ran off in that direction. The commotion too sparked a crowd to start gathering around the shop.

How will you react, Shikamaru and Yoshiko? Shikaku wondered to himself. Knowing Yoshiko's personality and Shikamaru, they will never sanction or support such behavior. Whether they would do take action or sit on the fence remained unknown to Shikaku.

"Go away Demon Child!"


	3. Chapter 3

Hey there guys, I'm back! Enjoy this chapter. Sorry if its a little too short.

Chapter 3: Pride and Prejudice don't mix well.

Yoshiko was exposed to something that she had never expected in a village full of ninja. Back in her old world, there were racism, prejudice and bullying. However none on of it was as atrocious as the scene in front of her.

An adult picking on a whimpering little boy and no one bothering to help. At least back in her city as she remembered, people will come forward on their own accord to help the ones being bullied. They would call it acting as the bigger man. Her parents in her past life had drilled a moral compass in her (though she didn't really want it since it got her into trouble quite a few times); morals had she hadn't forgotten and leaving someone, even a stranger in the lurch when she could lend a helping hand goes against that compass. Like something bugging her to tell that man to pick on someone his own size!

She was scared of course, facing a grown man in her five year old body; but when she turned to her father, he was looking at her, as if he was trying to see how will she choose to react. No doubt he would go along whatever she chose to do. That gave her some sort of a boost in confidence, only a tiny bit though.

"Hey Mister, I would like to ask why are you mistreating him like that?" She strode forward, imitating her father to the max when he was acting as the Jonin Commander in hope of looking a little more authoritative. She wouldn't have stepped in if anyone would do that instead. Then again, she probably looked very stupid standing up to a grown up. The confidence boost vanished faster than a cat being dunked in a bath full of cold water.

The little blonde boy was harmless and she was determined to defend him; she was stubborn even without all that confidence. Innocent until proven guilty, the boy was not some international wanted criminal, he was just a kid for crying out loud. That in itself made her not want to walk away, stupid conscience! Her sense of preservation was being overruled by both it and her pride. She cursed to herself mentally. It's going to be another matter of time before it gets her into hot soup in this world where she rather minded her own business.

He was currently covered in tomatoes and other foods that people were throwing at him. Most likely the whole thing was initiated by the couple. Even people back in her world will not do that to a kid!

"Little girl you shouldn't be mixing with bad children like him. Your parents should know why shouldn't mix with this demon child." The man sounded dismissive and demeaning of her, like he hadn't cares if she was offended at all. Little twat! The eighteen year old Jean in Yoshiko hissed. Yep she got an ego the size of Russia and she certainly dislike being put down like a dog by its owner! I'm so gonna own you bitch! The uncensored eighteen year old hissed, surprising herself at her own short fuse. Well no five year old like to be insulted and no five year old have got the patience of Buddha!

~Page Break~

Shikaku could see his daughter getting angry before a wrathful gleam appeared in her large brown eyes. It was the look that Yoshino had whenever she was prepared to chew someone's head off or impale them with her weaponry when she was on active duty. A passive Nara was not very dangerous but a motivated Nara was deadly. Shikuka watched in further amusement as the gears in his daughter's head was visibly turning to come out with a witty insult.

"How troublesome. Women like to be dramatic, don't they dad?" Shikamaru was yawning at the spectacle.

"Hmm... A woman would show her gentle side to a man whom she loves. Your sister has inherited a flair for dramatics like your mother and her sharp tongue as well." Shikaku could tell his son was too amused by his sister's antics although the boy would never admit it on the pretext of women being bothersome. Just then, Shikaku saw Inoichi's colleague Ibiki stopping to watch this verbal spar.

Shikaku could see from the man's rather relaxed posture, he was looking at the scuffle like some sort of light entertainment after work. Well Shikaku knew that this would look like a comedy as compared to the tortures and interrogations during the working hours of the T&I head.

"Little girl? At least this little girl has a lot more sense than a grown man like you who may have the IQ and a brain the size of a bird's egg! You senseless piece of lard!" Oops she hadn't wanted to insult the man like that. Totally came out wrongly but it had felt good to get it off her chest. Seems like five year olds don't have good control over their little traps. Rather than showing any sign of remorse, she gave the man a smug smile.

"You-" The man shook with anger, banishing a finger and shaking it to prove his point. The man who was actually quite fat with multiple chins suddenly looked a lot like a hippo with his nostrils flaring and turning purple. He was supposed to look intimidating to many people, however to Yoshiko he looked like a oversized puffed up hippo dressed in human clothing that deserved to be kicked back to the mud bank. Strangely enough, he reminded her of a character in a book she read during he previous life but she could not come up with its name.

"Going to tell me how right am I?" She hissed back feeling the familiar adrenaline rush she gets when she knows that she is going to win. Her smile grew considerably larger. Childish but she can't really help it. Rational Jean is gone, leaving behind a Yoshiko who is determined to win this fight.

"Brat be more respectful to your elders!" A woman who appeared to be the man's wife yelled at Yoshiko. The woman was the complete opposite of her husband. Thin like a stick and a ridiculous long bony neck, she looked a lot like a harpy to the fuming Nara. Again she reminded her of the wife of a character in a book she read.

"How about you keep silent harpy? Or do you feel the need to demonstrate your horrible screech? Rumor has it that the T&I make use of your voice to torture criminals! Oh maybe that may be true. A harpy and hippo, excellent choice for a couple mind you. One that will even choose to bully a child like that. You know what? Only those worst than trash would treat a child who has done nothing like that!"

Walking past the shell-shocked couple she held out her hand for the whimpering boy. That was the Jean in her speaking, though a lot less rational than normal, the Jean who had more experience with dealing bullies who had picked on her younger brother for his thick glasses, freckles and being scrawny. Yoshiko was Jean and she had no intention of turning into a little child who would rather hide behind her father.

That situation had struck a cord in her, the anger, she recognized it when the same thing had happened to her little brother. The little boy seemed grateful and happy even that someone bothered to step up for him, even if help had came in the form of a little girl.

The woman moved forward as if to struck her after she recovered her own bearings only to be stopped in the act. The woman tried to resist against the invisible hold on her only to realize that it was futile.

"I would advise you to step away from my child madam." Shikaku calmly said, hands clasped in the familiar rat seal, casually sending little waves of killing intent to the civilian woman. That was when the crowd noticed that the head of the Nara Clan and his heir were standing in their midst. Most made the connection quickly that the little girl was no ordinary brat but a clan kid and probably the second in line to the Nara Clan.

That was Yoshiko's cue to go to her father. Not letting go of the blond boy's hand, she ran towards her father. Shikaku promptly released the woman who had fallen to the ground in an unflattering flop. While walking away from the scene, they were stopped by the tall imposing Ibiki.

"Shikaku-san your little girl would be a good addition to the T&I when she is older." Ibiki Morino remarked casually to his superior's friend. The way that she provoked and humiliated the couple was advanced for a five year old who Ibiki had expected to drag her father to handle matters for her. Well her father did help her restrain the angry civilians but Ibiki could see how those knife like words from a child had shocked the couple. A well executed verbal attack. More grooming from him and she will soon be able to extract information from enemy ninja; people will always underestimate a youngster or a child in this line of work.

Shikaku however had little or no intention of allowing Ibiki Morino to train his little girl, as he had not so subtly suggested. No child of mine is going to learn how to be a sadist. Sure Yoshiko had the potential, but Shikaku had rather she stay on her path to be a medical ninja. Shikaku rather his two children remain pure as pure as possible in this chaotic world of the Shinobi.

Shikamaru smirked at his sister and said dryly. "Always had a flair for dramatics don't you?"

Yoshiko gave him a half smile. "My dear Shika, didn't you enjoy the show anyway?"

Naruto looked puzzled between those two bickering siblings. He had not believed that anyone would stand up for him. People always picked on him, no matter where they were. At the orphanage, at school, on the streets... Except the old man Hokage, he was the only one who was nice to him during the weekly visits.

Naruto noticed that the girl in the red dress and the boy was quite familiar. Oh they were his classmates! But they had not sat together in class hence Naruto had found it surprising that they were siblings.

~Page Break~

After the Nara siblings and their father sent Naruto back to the orphanage, they continued their journey back home. Naruto had loudly proclaimed to the two Nara siblings about his dream to become Hokage, something that the two siblings didn't understand yet they didn't voice their opinions about it until Naruto was out of the earshot.

"Father who would wish to be Hokage? There is too many things to do and it's going to be so boring." Yoshiko visibly shuddered at the memory of the thick stacks of papers she had seen in front of the Hokage when she visited him with her father and her brother.

"It's a drag to be Hokage... I'd rather be an advisor. You know less work and less troublesome." Shikamaru drawled.

"Yeah, and I want to be a field medic or poison specialist. But dad what did Morino-san mean when he wanted me to learn from him? Is he a specialist with poisons?" Yoshiko questioned her father, her large eyes blinking rather unknowingly at him.

Shikaku preferred not to answer. Ibiki does use poisons a lot but a total different sort of poison that had almost no antidote to it. Nothing that his daughter will be interested in since she particularly liked the part about making the antidote.

"No, Ibiki-san isn't a poison specialist." He replied quickly. Shikamaru was similar to him, in terms of their ability to strategize and their common interest in Shogi. Yoshiko however would have gotten along well with the disciple of Lady Tsunade with their shared love for poisons and medical ninjutsu. His daughter appeared to like senbon as her weapon of choice and she showed average skill for other weaponry. Shikamaru would be easy to teach and train him with them being two peas in a pod; Yoshiko however... He would have to bring in a favor from dear old Choza.

So how is it? Is it too fast or slow? The story will start picking up soon and going into canon soon. Maybe in about 2-3 more chapters... Leave a review if possible, I like hearing feedback to improve on future chapters.


	4. Chapter 4

The Two Fawns:  
Chapter 4: A Normal Day and a Less than Normal Lesson

3 years later...

Months passed and the now eight year old Yoshiko found that Academy life was as plain as drinking water and as dry as the deserts in Suna. Granted she hadn't fell asleep like Shikamaru during every single lesson, but Yoshiko can feel herself feeling sleepy during the theory lessons. It was a matter of when she will collapse on the desk while on a date with the Sandman. The only lessons she looked forward to were lessons with Iruka, where he would be teaching them military strategy, weaponry (cause she still one of the last at shuriken throwing) and chakra control.

Yawning for the umpteenth time that day, Yoshiko stretched from her seat while Mizuki-sensei's back was turned from her. It was another lesson on the History of Konoha, total bullshit aka propaganda for the eighteen year old Jean present in her. Had she not been born with an eighteen year old mind, it would be so easy for her to subscribe to whatever they were saying. Many things were fundamentally wrong in the Rules that they were told to follow. Rules were meant to be broken anyway hence she had not seen the reasoning behind teaching them those rules.

It was similar to the way how her teachers in middle school used to teach American History, droning on and on like a buzzing bee. Yoshiko was quite surprised that Mizuki-sensei hadn't grown wings, feelers and become yellow and black; his voice sure sounded like one. She could pass her test well above the average of the class hence she saw little need to pay attention.

Turning to her partner and friend; Hinata looked just as bored but at least she was sitting upright and trying her best to listen to the buzzing. Sasuke was in the exact same position, the classic I'm-not-listening-but-I'm-doing-it-for-grades look. Sitting up, Yoshiko allowed her mind to drift to the private lesson she was going to get tonight with her tutor. Genma-sensei had been a really interesting teacher with his rather quirky sense of humor and he would sometime drag along another one of his specialist Jonin pals when teaching her in the forest near her clan compound. She regretted not sitting beside Naruto and Kiba.

~Page Break~

Time flies when one is dreaming. When the familiar bell rang for lunch time, Yoshiko trotted over to her brother's place where the latter was still asleep on his desk. Chouji was there, smiling at her and offering her a chip, a gesture of friendship from an Akimichi is when they voluntarily share their food with another.

Smiling back, she accepted the chip. It means she accepts the friendship. Chouji and her had a friendship due to him being Shikamaru's best friend. In a way, Chouji too considered her a friend and stood up for her when the popular girls Ami and her gang made fun of her obsession with reading and her apparent weakness at Taijutsu. She was dreading the Taijutsu lesson later that day.

Continuing her journey to her favorite tree had been a quiet one. Taking one of the forest trails that led to the back of the Academy, a large ancient tree sat there in all its glory. The tree was supposedly older than the village with it being around since the time of the First Hokage. Climbing the tree had been relatively easy with her chakra to avoid the thorny vines that grew on the trunk of the tree.

Opening her bento, she sat down on her usual quiet spot on the tree branch after climbing the tree like a cat. Setting her book bag on another nearby branch, she grabbed her book on various poisonous flowers and started to eat. Hinata would be eating with Shino as she was a lot closer to the Aburame heir than to the Nara heiress.

Sensing the raven haired boy's chakra, she gave him a slight wave in acknowledgement of his presence. Sasuke frowned at her being so high up on a tree. That tree was especially difficult to climb with its thorny branch, not wishing to end up with multiple scratches, Sasuke resigned to sitting on a log next to the trunk of the tree to eat his lunch. At least that spot was extremely peaceful as compared to the area where most of the Academy students were flocking at, he was not a social butterfly. Plus he found most of his classmates noisy and annoying.

Evading the fangirls had been a lot harder than usual. After several tracking lessons, those bunch of giggling girls had been a lot harder to shake off. The usual evasion tactics hadn't worked very well. Plus Yoshiko would have a fit where he becomes a target if he allowed any of those girls near her tree. That girl could scratch worst than Tora the demon cat according to Itachi when Sasuke had arrived home looking a lot like a scratching pole but not injured after a sparring session between the two. (He won in the end.) His mother had laughed at him saying how a woman's greatest weapons were her fingernails while his father had been rather amused at him. Those scratches were relatively harmless and light but it was embarrassing for him to be covered in all that red marks.

They both relaxed on their various spots, glad for the blanket of comfortable silence. Yoshiko sitting on a tree while Sasuke was resting on the soft grass.

Their peaceful bubble was disrupted when Yoshiko felt the chakra signatures of a group approaching them in around five minutes. Must be those girls from the fanclub with Ino Yamanaka leading them. Yoshiko had nothing against Ino but that girl took the fangirling a step too far if she is going to be one of the unfortunate collateral damage in their pursuit of the Uchiha boy. Feeling unusually kind that day, Yoshiko decided to help the rather flustered Uchiha boy who had quickly hidden himself amongst the bushes.

"Hey Sasuke, you can climb up the tree if you want." Knowing Ino's abilities at sniffing out anything Sasuke; she would be able to find him in those bushes within an estimated ten minutes. But on a tree that she believes only Yoshiko knew how to climb; she would be inclined to think that Sasuke was not hidden among the branches.

"How?" The boy replied dryly. Yoshiko signed, she had been rather selfish about the methods on scaling the tree. No doubt any trained ninja would be able to climb the tree, they were talking about Academy children who hadn't thought that chakra control was important unlike her hence her ability to have excellent chakra control. An advantage would have been her mature mental age giving her an unfair edge over anyone else. Still it was relatively easy to muster for anyone with a half decent chakra control if they put their minds to it.

It was a miracle that she could even put her mind into mustering how to climb a tree using chakra. Possessing eighteen year old mind does not mean possessing an eighteen year old attention span unfortunately. Her pool sized attention span of three hours had been severely reduced into the attention span of a teaspoon worth of fifteen minutes. Alas she digress. Looking back at the raven haired boy, she held out one of her hands to him that he quickly took. Focussing her chakra on her feet and hands, she dragged both himself and lunchbox that he carried with him to the spot with her book bag. That was easier said than done. She had to try to drag him up multiple times with him pushing a little chakra onto his feet. It require cooperation and proper timing on both parts. It was difficult when she was half falling out of the tree when he grabbed her too hard or when she grabbed him too lightly, he was falling off the tree. Yoshiko bet her year worth supply of dango that if his fangirls see him holding on to her hands like that, no explanation will be needed and she will be royally screwed over by Uchiha Junior. Well it would look romantic to them, but for the two of them, it looked like a particularly tough game of vertical see-saw with a lot of yelping when a thorn scratched them and a lot of hissing to keep quiet.

That took a lot out of her as she sat back down in exhaustion. Chakra wise she was fine, but God that boy was weighed like a ton! Grabbing a few fern leaves, she hissed at him to be a fern. While Sasuke grumbled and tried his hardest to get himself comfortable to make a believable fern out of himself; Yoshiko propped herself back on the branch, grabbed her book with one hand and discreetly rubbed her sore muscles with the other.

As she said, Ino and almost all the girls of the class ran over to the tree upon sighting her on the tree. Tricking Ino will be hard under normal circumstances with the Kunoichi being extremely level headed and clever, however when the issue is about Sasuke, it seemed like all logic has been thrown out of the window for the blonde girl.

"Hey Yoshiko-san have you seen Sasuke-kun around?" She yelled up the tree with the rest of the fan club keeping their eyes peeled for the any sign raven hair or the Uchiha signature fan symbol.

"Umm... Not really. I'm kind of caught up in my book. You know I wouldn't see anything or hear anything once I'm reading." Okay that was a slight exaggeration. She can clearly hear some things but seeing was almost a nil with her bumping into walls, pillars, trees and the occasional person when she read while taking a walk. Embarrassing but the notes on the various plants had interest her so much that she kind of forgot to keep track of her surroundings.

The blonde haired girl definitely knew that from Shikamaru's frequent complaints about having to hold her hand, steady her, direct her when she is walking with her tendencies to be as blind as a bat if her hand is holding onto a book. Hence believing the other girl's words and running off to look for Sasuke in a different part of the Academy.

Now that she thought about it; Shikamaru could have just allowed her to walk into that wall but he often grab on to her and redirect her, hence Yoshiko sensed that was his weird way of caring for her.

She too often covered Shikamaru when he cut class with Naruto, Kiba, Akamaru and Chouji. She simply distracted Iruka by asking a particularly difficult question with Iruka not wanting to make her feel lost by dumbing down his answers to be as easily understood as possible. Or sometimes she would volunteer to help her favorite classroom teacher bring in the assignments before the lesson with him accompanying her. Iruka will be extremely glad at her enthusiasm and would try slowing down his pace to prevent her from tripping on as she cannot see the stairs with books obstructing her view; hence buying her brother and his gang a window time of five minutes. Something they will always make full use of.

Of course Iruka might not have associated her actions being linked to the acts committed by her brother and his group. She was the bookworm, the quiet and dreamy student who liked asking questions in class and a helpful pupil to her sensei. He would never think to link her, the few white sheep of the class to the mischief makers. Well the good ones are those that never get caught, that saying rang true in this case.

Hmm... She is letting her mind run wild again. Looking back at the issue at hand, she could see Sasuke now putting away the fern leaves at his side and is now eating his lunch. Grabbing her lunchbox, she too started to eat and giving her tomatoes to him while he gave her the sweets in his lunchbox.

~Page Break~

"Hey Yoshiko-chan, how about visiting my house for dinner?" Sasuke asked his friend. Mother had been quite curious about his little lady friend at school and had wanted to meet her. The spring festival was coming up in the Uchiha District in a week's time. He had asked his father for permission to bring along Yoshiko to the Clan District and was granted permission. Strangely enough his father was quite pleased that he was becoming close to a Nara.

"Hmm... Maybe. My dad or mom will have to come along though and I have to ask for permission from my sensei. Can Hinata and Shikamaru's group come too?" She asked him, now putting away her book. She had wanted to get Ino too or even Sakura if Ino wanted her best friend to come as well; but she knew that would be pushing it. Knowing Sasuke's aversion to the fan girls, she didn't try push it.

"Then I got to ask mother or father tonight." Sasuke replied. Lunchtime was almost over and they had to get off the tree quickly before class starts. Again the twisted game of vertical see-saw begin, with a occasional curse from the two children at each other.

~Page Break~

Why must it be Taijutsu training after lunch? Yoshiko whined in her mind. No doubt, she will once again be the laughing stock of the class for not really landing a hit on any opponent or her hits don't tend to hurt.

Now they were all lining up and facing each other; guess who was she partnered with again? Ami, one of the populars and fangirl of Sasuke who hence dislike her for sitting next to Sasuke. Taijutsu lessons when paired with her were always a way for Ami to attack her without consequences. Why didn't she come after Hinata one would ask. Well that is due to the fact that Hinata is the top of the class amongst the girls for Taijutsu. Hinata may not like to fight but when she fights, a sweeping hit can hurt like a punch.

Catching Hinata's eye, she mouthed good luck at her and got a good luck back from the other girl. Hinata was facing the top Kunoichi of the class-Ino. Yoshiko knew that Hinata would win hands down in a Taijutsu fight even while trying to be as gentle as possible with her opponents. She agreed with her need to protect rather than hurt.

Iruka gave them the begin signal. Giving her opponent a quick bow and taking a defensive stance, she dodged Ami's punch to her face by ducking down. When Ami's leg swing up to kick her, she sidestepped on instinct, causing the other girl to stubble slightly. What she made up for lack of strength and stamina would be her agility and speed.

Ami was getting impatient, her hits becoming harder and heavier, her movements less controlled. Well she hadn't sparred with Ami for at least six months, hence she has definitely improved with her lessons at home like all clan children who have private tutors.

Once she noted that Ami was catching her breath from wasting her energy at trying to hit her, well a couple landed and it hurt a lot. She had gotten a few bruises from the barrage of kicks, swipes and punches from her opponent. Ami played dirty, but Yoshiko refused to do the same, as that would be swooping to her levels. She aimed a low swipe to Ami's already shaking legs causing the other girl to fall with a thud on the floor. Sasuke gave her a slight smile when he saw Ami on the ground and her standing. Yoshiko grinned back at the Uchiha before motioning at him to concentrate on his fight against his opponent earning herself a shrug that seem to say he didn't need 100% against a weak opponent. Typical Uchiha arrogance full stop.

She grinned when the boy Sasuke was sparring with managed to punch him in the arm hard due to his distraction. Ha. Take that. Sasuke had stumbled momentarily before regaining his composure.

"What are you smiling at?" Ami demanded.

"Nothing that you should know about." Yoshiko replied coolly, still holding a grudge against the other girl's unfair ways of fighting.

Catching her breath shallowly, she reluctantly made the Reconcilement Seal with Ami, Ami glowering at her throughout before walking to the shady spot under the tree where her brother was already lying there and looking at the clouds with Chouji snacking next to him.

"Your dodging definitely improved," Shikamaru remarked with Chouji nodding in agreement.

"Yeah and her hitting got harder." Yoshiko rubbed her tender arms painfully. It will be leaving purple bruises that will stay for at least a week.

"Yoshiko-chan you did improve dattebayo!" Naruto exclaimed with Kiba agreeing and Akamaru giving a loud bark in response. It was hard to see why Naruto was so sunny after getting floor wiped by Sasuke. I told my raven haired friend to go easy on Naruto, but he had shrugged and said dead last was just bad. Sasuke was currently sparring against other students who came out to challenge him;

"Y-yoshiko-chan... Here... It will help your bruises heal." Hinata had came over from her spot with Shino. Her hands were clasped around a jar of ointment that she held out. She offered some to Naruto and Kiba who took it quickly with grins on their faces.

Yoshiko took a tiny bit for herself and applied it on her aching arms. Hinata was really sweet with her helping others and being extremely gentle with her opponents to not hurt them excessively. Hinata was not soft as others saw her, but rather she had a gentle and firm nature with deep rooted principals against hurting people for no good reasons, something that not many ninjas possessed, this made Yoshiko develop a deep respect for the other girl.

~Page Break~

Dinner passed quickly with little incident except their mother nagged at the two siblings for sleeping and not paying attention during classes. That had resolved quickly with their father coming to their rescue. Currently, Shikamaru was being dragged by the elders of the clan for his nightly training as the future head of the clan. Troublesome old men, her brother had complained.

She, on the other hand being the spare was spared from all that boring clan head training. Instead she was waiting for her sensei to arrive. The tell tale spike in chakra from the Body Flicker Technique told her that her sensor was here.

"Genma-sensei?" She asked. By helping training her sensory abilities, Genma-sensei had told her to cover her eyes with a piece of blindfold and sense out his chakra signature.

"Close." The much deeper voice replied before her blindfold was taken out. A tall man with spikey brown hair and a large scar across his face -Raido-sensei.

Raido-sensei was a lot stricter as compared to Genma-sensei from the sessions where he covered her normal teacher when he had to go on missions. He led her to the clan training grounds that they often used.

"Have you made that poison and antidote?" He asked her before they begin. He always had homework for her, either research on a poison or prepare a poison. Raido-sensei often told her what properties of the poison he required her to have: in this case, he wanted the poison to cause diarrhea and a stomach ache.

She passed him the mixture of broom and aloe for the poison along with its antidote that was made of plants that were supposed to counter the effects of broom and aloe. In its own way, the antidote is a poison that causes constipation.

Raido-sensei took the glass vial up and viewed the poison carefully. It was time for him to give his critic and advice for the poison.

"It's a good one. However due to the addition of too much water in an attempt to disguise its smell and taste, this poison will only take effect a few hours after contact. My advice to you would be to try extracting the toxins in these plants and add it to the water rather than the plant itself. Extraction will require a distillation process if possible make use of the chakra extraction method with pure water. Your control of chakra should enable you to do that." Yoshiko hang onto her sensei's every word and taking notes on her toxicology book. While she was writing, suddenly Raido-sensei almost dropped her vial of poison when someone slapped him hard on his back.

"Back from your mission so soon, Genma?" The scarred man remarked dryly at his teammate. As usual Genma would always finish his mission quickly and hurry back. That was his style. Another B rank completed I guess... Raido thought. Better than that assassination attempt that I had to do... That A rank mission hadn't gone that well and he had to flee the scene to avoid detection; resulting in one more addition to his tiny list of failed missions.

"Yeah, you know the usual stuff. So how about lets get my little cute student ready for some combat training?" The other man who was busy chewing on his senbon asked.

"Fine, I guess. Her poison is well made. We'd be having a little Shizune with us, seven and already brewing poisons. Well not that her poisons are fatal, but a good achievement for a kid." Raido replied. Since there were two of them with that kid today, a rare occurrence, they can get down to combat training without dumbing down their skills too much.

"Cute Little Fragrance, pick a teammate. And don't split your pretty little head apart when doing so." Genma grinned at his student when he see her scowl at him for the ridiculous nickname before turning becoming a tomato once she realized that she had once again lost her cool. That head joke had been quite funny, an inside joke shared amongst her tutors after Anko had called her that when she fell and landed on her head several times on a roll after a training session with the snake summoner.

Ever since Kotetsu called her that horrendous nickname; most of the Chunins and Jonins had caught wind of it and it riled her up when someone called her that. Anko had jokingly warned him that his student may poison him in his sleep once her poisoning skills increase. Genma had laughed it off, Yoshiko was quick and nimble for her age but in terms of being sneaky, that kid have a long way with tripping on her feet while trying to sneak itching powder into his pants. Granted she had been successful due to Anko's help by restraining his movements with her snakes, but he would have ran circles around her if she was alone. Genma still felt the phantom itches till this day.

"Raido-sensei." The girl replied in a heartbeat, grabbing the other man's hands before childishly sticking her tongue out at him and blushed again once she realized her actions. Raido seemed to be quite surprised by her choice. Often her choice would be Genma since he is her main trainer and knew her fighting style best.

"Heh, picking the guest sensei over me. Naughty Little Fragrance." Genma taunted before continuing, "Fine by me. The objective of this mission would be to successfully poison me with this new poison of yours with at least ten senbon. Meanwhile you have to keep your teammate and yourself from being hit by ten senbon of mine. You have a time limit of an hour. Raido-sensei cannot help in the planning. I will give you three minutes to plot with Raido-sensei since it will be your first time working with him. Don't worry your pretty little mind too much." Genma enjoyed teasing her a little too much, he had to admit it himself. Little kids tend to become amusing for a ninja with their little antics.

He had to give the prospective medic ninja a support role, knowing most field medic supplement their team's attack. "Okay. Begin!" Genma said to his student.

~Page Break~

Smart. Genma thought when he saw her tapping codes into his teammate's palm. Her taps was concealed by her long sleeves. Hence her holding his hands, he concluded. It must be the Morse Code. Genma had made her memorize the whole code order before he even taught her anything two years ago. It will prove invaluable one day when she needs to communicate with her teammates when she becomes a field medic.

"Raido-sensei now!" Genma found himself surrounded by black feathers. A signature of Raido.

"Kai." He said firmly, dispelling the Genjutsu. Raido was already next to him, swinging his black sword dipped in poison at him. Genma's senbon shot out like a projectile, deflecting the sword and knocking it far out of his teammate's reach. Grabbing three senbon between his fingers, he quickly avoided the shadow that was reaching out for his. He avoided the shadow prompting a barrage of Taijutsu attacks from Raido.

Sneaky. Using Raido as a distraction. Let's see if she can defend her teammate against this. He flung the senbon point blank at Raido who was still in mid-air. Raido moved back immediately, missing the senbon narrowly. Genma smirked at the tell-tale too dark shadow of Raido. Shadow Possession Technique, the insignia of a Nara.

"Shadow Possession Technique, success."

He could see the girl panting slightly at using the Shadow Possession to fling Raido out of the way. Knowing Raido's large stature, it takes a lot more chakra for her to move him. Not bad for a little girl. They were both fighting at twenty percent capacity with no showy ninjutsu, just basic Taijutsu or Genjutsu in the case with Raido's fondness for them.

The fight continued on, with Genma managing to nick Raido with nine needles and himself with nine needles from the little girl as well. She will be quite low on chakra now, the specialist Jonin noted. Grabbing the last senbon, he was about to throw it at his teammate when he was stopped in his steps. Shadow Possession.

"Shadow Possession Technique success. Game over." She said panting, exhausted. Yet her shadow held true. It was like she was struggling to make it hold him in place. Genma knew at full capacity, he will be able to break from its hold, but he was fighting at a beginner Genin level skill. Hence he did not try to resist it.

"Why? We both have nine senbon on each other. The last senbon would be the decisive one." He knew what her strategy was once he was caught but he rather she explained what was going in her little mind.

"No. Not when you are right-handed and I am left handed. Even if I throw that senbon at you, you will not be able to launch this senbon at me." True to her word, the senbon from her hand hit his left arm, marking her tenth senbon. Once she released her technique, she knelt over and caught her breath in shallow pants.

Two Shadow Possessions in a span of thirty seconds each was still her limit. Genma smiled at her proudly before taking the antidote to the poison. Raido too took the antidote. Lesson was over.

"I will see you tomorrow Little Frangrance." Genma dismissed his student where she walked sluggishly back home.

"She chose to miss all the vital spots." Raido remarked while the two were pulling out the senbon attacked to their bodies.

"Hmm... If Yoshiko hadn't done that, she will not be the same Yoshiko I know." Genma replied owlishly back at his long-time teammate.

~Page Break~

A familiar suppressed chakra signature came from Shikaku Nara who was looking at his daughter from the cover of the trees. Given Yoshiko's current skills at being a sensor ninja, she won't be able to sense her father but the two special Jonin could sense the Jonin Commander's presence. Unknown to that little girl, Shikaku Nara had been very up to date with her progress. To the little girl, her father only trained her in the clan techniques.

When Genma asked the older man about joining in, Shikaku had said it would too troublesome for him to join in and that little Yoshiko would have a big problem pelting her father with those poisonous needles of hers. This will make her hold back; something that Genma experienced when he first started teaching her combat after all that theory knowledge and target practice. She was almost reluctant to hit her family or friends that she knew personally fatally. Something that seemed ingrained in her being, too deep for it to be changed. Too deep for the mental conditioning that the Second Hokage had designed to sink in.

A dangerous belief for a ninja to have especially against some missions that involve killing of innocent people to ensure its success. She may be seen as weak. Genma had too much experience with that kind of missions. Guilt often eat at him when he has to cut down defenseless children in the way of the mission, something that was considered human. He knew he is not one of those who can switch their humanity on and off in different situations. However, Genma didn't bothered correcting the little girl's belief. He hoped to keep that child's heart pure for as long as possible in this chaotic ninja world of violence and blood.

Though Genma had to admit, her rather short fuse had to be worked on for her to not lose her head in the middle of a battle. Sure it would provide light entertainment for him when she is so easily worked up; and cute when she feels embarrassed about it but it would not do well for her to have that quality in battle.

~Page Break~

That night while the entire village was resting, the Uchiha Massacre took place. Besides the blood and death; it destroyed a piece of a child's innocence, leaving behind a bitter and vengeful boy.

That event left the whole of Konoha shaken once the news was released by the Hokage. Many were shocked by the extermination of the largest and the supposedly strongest clan in the whole village. They were all killed within a span of a single night, by a boy who was not yet a man, a boy who was their next leader.

The Uchiha were supposed to keep the village safe from crime and catch the wrongdoers; the Uchiha were not that popular with the villagers with their distant attitude towards the village, their absence was soon felt by the people of Konoha.

The very security of Konoha was at stake. Without the military might of the Uchiha Clan, other hidden villages were soon all too aware of Konoha's shortage in manpower. The very deterrent for the warmongers were all but gone with a span of a night. This caused an emergency deployment of Jonins to be on high alert and the recalling of all active ninjas out of the village to turn back.

Shikaku had been forced to leave his home at midnight when the Hokage sent for him for a private audience. Shikaku himself had difficulty believing the accounts of that genocide. A single boy ANBU or not is definitely unable to take out a whole clan filled with many of Konoha's elite ninja. Itachi Uchiha may be a prodigy, but he is no Madara Uchiha.

"Lord Hokage, I believe this matter is not as simple as it seemed to be. Uchiha Itachi has no reason to-" Shikaku's words were interrupted by the door of the Hokage office opening.

"Danzo." The Third's voice held a steel edge to it.

"Seem like Hiruzen has figured it all out." Danzo strode into the room. Shikaku tensed up. The two men had often butted heads with each other over Council decisions. The elder had been an extremist with little concern over the loss of human lives; something that Shikaku disagreed with on a very fundamental level.

"I ordered Itachi to do it." Danzo continued in a flat disinterested tone. To any outsiders, they could be talking about the weather but the tension in the room was thick enough to be sliced with a butter knife. The anger from the calm Hokage was nothing that Shikaku had seen over his ten years in service to the Hokage as his personal adviser.

"The Uchiha are part of Konoha! Which part of no did you not understand? I vetoed that order. Talks were supposed to be scheduled between the Uchiha and the Council! A peaceful method without bloodshed, that is the way Lord Hashirama would have done to a clan who was with us from the very formation of Konoha!" The Hokage hardly raised his voice. It was bad but Shikaku felt that even he was not supposed to step in yet.

"It was for the safety of the village and the prevention of another war. That sacrifice was justified. Should we not deal with the Uchiha strictly, the other clans would follow." Danzo pointed stressed on the other clans.

Shikaku felt rather insulted by the elder. Plus the village elders had always tried to isolate the major clans from the inner workings of the village. They had been extremely subtle about it with most of the clans but their most balant attempt at alienation was to push the Uchiha to the outskirts of Konoha. A move that took place after the Kyuubi attacks when they rebuilt the new prison and the new clan district for the Uchiha.

Shikaku and all the other clan heads had protested against it but the Elders had prevailed in their tough stand against the 'culprits' of the Kyuubi incident by lobbying with the civilian council.

"Indeed it was. You have ruined the lives of two innocent boys for the sake of your paranoia against the Uchiha!" The Hokage yelled in righteous fury.

Danzo seemed indifferent to the fact that he had just sentenced an entire clan to death. Instead he appeared to be rather proud of doing that. Shikaku felt nothing but disgust for the man. Clearly diplomatic measures could have worked out fine; the Uchiha had simply felt let out and not respected in the village. They are also denied a voice within the Council with the Elders often blocking their petitions. A simple solution would to give the Uchiha more say (something that they had been continuously denied despite their efforts in the security of the village) and involvement in the village affairs. Shikaku suspected that Danzo had an ulterior motive but what it was had been unclear to the Nara Clan Head.

"You have gone too far Danzo. Too many a times have I, the Hokage gave you allowances. You shall discontinue the Root and you will have no place in the Council for your betrayal against the village." The Hokage said gravely. Shikaku had told the Hokage that should he choose to punish Danzo with death for the genocide, he would be further dismantling the fragile state of stability in the village. Plus if the knowledge of the Uchiha Clan coup be known, the young Sasuke Uchiha may not be able to live peacefully in the village in dignity. The Uchiha name would be tarnished forever.

Shikaku resist the temptation to groan out loud when the Elder was escorted out of the office by one of the Hokage's guard. One troublesome thing after another. It seemed like the world was bent on making his life as advisor miserable. He couldn't wait for Shikamaru to take over his job while he retire into a lifestyle of playing Shogi and relaxing.

How was it?


	5. Chapter 5

The Two Fawns:

Chapter 5: A Paper Dove, A Very Interesting Training Session and Find

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Hey guys I'm back again!

* * *

Sitting in class the next day without the raven head had been lonely even with Hinata around. Though Yoshiko wouldn't admit it in a million years that she miss Uchiha Sasuke aka annoying-boy-whom-she-has-to-save-from-the-fan-girls. A part of her had been worried about him. The whole day passed without any drama and the whole village was very solemn and tense, even the children had caught on with the adults' behavior. For once, Naruto had not pulled a prank in class. For once, Ami had not picked on her. For once, Kiba was silent. When he father had arrived to pick her up from school; Yoshiko had mechanically followed him, her mind elbow-deep in her thoughts.

Her father had broken the news at the breakfast table when Yoshiko had asked him why had he looked so haggard. The whole Uchiha Clan had been massacred by Itachi Uchiha, a thirteen year old for power. Most of the civilians had believed the story wholeheartedly with all the talks of poor Sasuke on her way to school. Yoshiko had wanted to scoff at their obvious lack of logic and sense. Shikamaru would be skeptical about it as well. Something about the massacre had rubbed her the wrong way, it would be laughable that Itachi would be able to defeat Fugaku of the Wicked Eye who was the potential candidate for Fourth Hokage that easily. Though Itachi is definitely stronger than his father; his father had years of experience under his belt. Hence Yoshiko wouldn't be surprised if the massacre was a failed attempt on the part of Itachi. But the fact that he had succeeded meant that something was fishy. What was it? She thought long and hard again; she couldn't put her finger onto it.

"It's a drag but Yoshiko you look like you've got constipation, it's kind of ugly on your face, you know." Shikamaru drawled from his side.

It's a obvious social rule to not call a girl ugly. Shikaku signed when Yoshiko had looked up at Shikamaru with a predatory gleam in her eyes and her twin swallowed at it.

"What did you just say?" His daughter was currently prowling towards his son; like how a tiger would approach its prey and Shikamaru looked like a deer caught in the way of a moving caravan.

"N-nothing!" Shikamaru yelped when his sister missed him by mere inches by pulling free from her father and launched herself to tackle him. The two children ran circles around their father who currently looked extremely amused at Shikamaru's horrified face.

"Just you wait! Wait till I get you-" another miss, "I will personally show you what's ugly!" Yoshiko hissed. Yoshiko may be fast but Shikamaru was good at narrowly escaping from his sister's claws due to him being forced to play ninja with his group of friends.

They both gave a shout of surprise when they found themselves lifted into the air by their father. Shikaku gave a sign. "A man must never call a woman ugly to her face and a woman should not be as petty as to hold a grudge for a man saying so." And there was their father's lecture. If there was one thing in the world that Shikaku wished he could not do, that would be babysitting a pair of twins. They may be smart, cute and mature for their age; to Shikaku, a kid meant troublesome, two kids meant double trouble and it only becomes more troublesome when they argue.

Hmm... I guess I can look forward tonight's sake at the bar with Inoichi and Choza with a game of Go on the side... Shikamaru teaming up with his sister was still not a match against him; although he had admit that they did improved. Shikamaru with his usual genius ability to come up with complex strategies and Yoshiko's uncanny ability to pick apart her opponent's moves, whispering her findings to her brother to delay the inevitable defeat. Not bad, those two can stall him for an hour with their combi;Shikamaru on the offense and Yoshiko backing him up. He was itching for another round with Choza.

~Page Break~

A week later...

Sasuke jolted out of his bed, the images of blood and his parents' corpses seared into his mind. His whole body was drenched in sweat, fear gripped every fibre of his being. That man, why would he do such a terrible thing? Sasuke felt his already fragile mind crumbling again. He fought to retain some control over himself.

He looked around himself, too sterile for his liking. Too much white, the smell of medicine was nauseating, Sasuke suddenly felt very small. All that he knew was gone. Mother and father were gone, he was alone. Suddenly the silence felt suffocating for him.

A bubbling of rage held on to him viciously; anger towards that man that destroyed his life stroke him like a persisting itch that he longed to scratch. When he prepared to exit the hospital room, he caught sight of something he hadn't noticed before.

It was a pure white, like the walls and ceilings of the room he was currently trapped in. However it didn't make him feel as constricted as before. It was an origami in the shape of a sparrow made with plain paper.

'Don't stay down Uchiha, I need my tree partner back. P.S: if you become heavier than before, the vertical see-saw will not work anymore.' Despite the corny joke written in one of its wings, Sasuke couldn't bring himself to laugh at her own brand humor instead he gave a 'hn' in response to the note.

"Oh you are awake Sasuke-chan!" A nurse burst into the room with her tray of medicines for the raven haired boy. The chirpy voice of the nurse irritated him to no end. The nurses of the hospital coddled him like an injured animal; something that Sasuke found as a personal insult. They wouldn't understand him no matter what. No one would.

He was prepared to toss the sparrow to the empty trash can when he stopped himself. Holding the sparrow in his hand, he shoved it into his pocket. Knowing her, she will probably supplement the bird with chakra, making it stronger and more resilient to wear and tear. She was strange that way.

Unknown to the boy was that he was not having a private moment by himself. Hiruzen Sarutobi was looking at the whole thing unfold through his crystal ball.

"Hmm... Seems like Sasuke has become attached to that gift. I wonder if the sender share similar sentiments to her gift recipient." The old man mumbled pensively to himself.

~Page Break~

Three weeks later...

Yoshiko hadn't been surprised when Sasuke turned up at school colder than before. He had refused to speak to anyone, retreating to another corner of the classroom instead of his usual seat next to her. Well she understood his need to brood like a moody hen. All Uchiha males seem to like brooding, young or old. Unfortunately, not everyone was aware of the Uchiha's need for space.

The fangirls had been a lot worse in their clingy antics towards the object of their affection. Most of them expect him to go running into their arms for comfort. Yoshiko would have thought he needed that should she had been a true seven year old, but the older teenager in her had made her realize that sometimes what one needed wasn't assuring words but space.

Yoshiko could see a few parallels in her situation with Sasuke. When she was Jean, finding out that she had terminal cancer a few months after her eighteenth birthday had been a devastating blow to her.

She had lost all hope in that span of a few minutes when the doctor had confirmed that she had months left to live. She was filled with false hope that she will win that three year battle against the monster. So confident was she when her doctor confirmed that she was doing well, her condition was improving slowly but surely. She admitted that she was in denial at first; she had fought the doctor's cruel ruling and insisted that he had made a mistake. However, the cold harsh truth was still there. She could only accept it and make use of whatever time she had left.

She understood that what Sasuke needed right now wasn't the coddling, the comforting or support from anyone. He had to make it out of the woods himself. He needed to learn to accept things for what they were. No one can help him find the closure he needed, no one except himself. She hoped that he could do that, that he was strong enough to overcome that mental obstacle himself.

Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she tuned herself back to the book she was reading and back to the paralysis toxin she was reading up on. Iruka-sensei would be there soon and all this chatter from the fangirls would stop; Yoshiko found herself developing a headache at their constant chattering on Sasuke.

When Iruka-sensei had finally arrived; the chattering had ceased as predicted, but the mumbling were constantly on the raven haired boy. Just then, Yoshiko had wished that Naruto had pulled a prank to lighten the whole atmosphere. He was the class clown and brought laughter wherever he went.

~Page Break~

Lunch time came soon enough for them. Once Iruka-sensei dismissed the hungry children for lunch; they had all but darted out of the classroom. Yoshiko had chosen to stay behind as she had some things she needed to consult the older ninja.

"Ahh... Yoshiko, what would you like to know?" Iruka had chosen to sit next to her at her desk rather than the teacher's table. Iruka was no fool, he knew that the Nara girl had no bias feelings against Naruto but she was quite the ambitious sort who knew what she wanted and she never subscribed to the whole pleasing the adults thing that most ninja children lived by.

That was obvious from how she would sometimes roll her eyes at him when she thought he wasn't looking if he made them recite the Will of Fire. She had deemed them unnecessary apparently when she very condescendingly told Mizuki that during a detention session. Iruka had caught on that double meaning that she was hinting at; but Mizuki hadn't and Iruka wanted it to stay that way. She was nice to Iruka, apparently the girl found his chakra appealing while Mizuki's revolting (for what reason he don't know) hence the difference in treatment.

That led him to form a few conclusions about the young Nara girl. A natural sensor, hence her abilities at controlling chakra (most sensory ninja are excellent at that field), a potential poison specialist and a hopeful medical ninja.

Iruka knew that Naruto had promise in becoming a ninja and he hoped that Yoshiko could become part of his squad. Knowing Yoshiko's personality and her drive, Naruto would be inclined to improve quickly if he gets positively influenced by her and not the opposite way. However, her next words shattered his ideal team that he had formed in his mind.

"Iruka-sensei, Genma-sensei had said that I will be ready to begin an apprenticeship at the Medical Corps in a few years time. I wonder if you could give me a rough idea of my abilities currently?" She asked Iruka owlishly. She knew what she wanted, she simply wanted his confirmation.

Therefore he had what few managed to get from a Nara, true approval and trust. A Nara often behave like a head stag of the herd, they are observant, cynical, protective, loyal and independent despite their initial lazy and laid back outlook that many had fell and paid dearly for.

Iruka hoped Shikamaru would one day be like his sister; although he suspected Shikamaru had a clear view of what he wanted, it was simply a matter of how driven he was to the certain goal.

Though Iruka would very much like Yoshiko to be Naruto's future teammate, he was not going to hold the girl back from her most ideal path. Combat medic would do best for her rather than a ninja practicing in the three main ninja arts.

"Yoshiko I shall be honest then. Your current pace in Taijutsu is not up to standards. Target practice is below average as well. I believe that your forte may not be amongst the common things that all ninjas are supposed to be good at. Once the year ends, I will be teaching you all the three basic ninjutsu which I believe is no problem for you given your chakra control. Hence I would recommend that you begin training as a medic after three years has passed." Iruka had high hopes for the little girl next to him as a future medical ninja and he had no intention to dissuade her from that path of hers.

After all, being a teacher meant that he was supposed to nurture his students to their fullest potential. If Yoshiko's full potential cannot be reached through him, he rather she reach it via the medical corps.

"However I sincerely hope that you would continue your friendship with Naruto. He may be the dead last in class and sometimes really annoying but he is Uzumaki Naruto, a future ninja of Konoha. And a precious person of mine..." He added the last part slowly watching the young girl's never changing expression. The Nara are sometimes so difficult to read!

At his words, Yoshiko gave him a slight smile that reminded him of her father. A smile too old to be found on this little girl's face. She was testing him all along!

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei. You have indeed a pure heart, your chakra had shown your true nature but seeing it in person made it all the more believing. One that others may mistaken as naivety but to those who can truly see, it's a virtue that not many possess. You really are a good teacher who lives by what he preaches." Once she said those words the girl stood up and left, leaving a rather puzzled teacher at her strange choice of words.

~Page Break~

Class finished especially early that day, her father was not able to pick them up due to him working overtime. Shikamaru was going to watch the clouds with Chouji at their usual spot on the roof hence Yoshiko was left to go home on her own. She closed her eyes in appreciation as the wind caressed her face gently. Konoha had nice weather that was not too cold or too warm when it's windy. She can feel herself slowly relaxing...oh wait maybe not.

"Hey Little Frangrance long time no see!" Of course she had the luck to run into Kotetsu Kagane. The one and only Kotetsu who gave her that horrible nickname that has long since stuck with every ninja in the village that she encounters. She walked away quickly, trying to avoid the Chunin. Only failing miserably in her pathetic attempt at escaping.

I'm going to ask Naruto for evasion lessons. Better yet get Genma-sensei to teach me how to run away from a persistent Chunin. Yoshiko made a mental note to herself before turning round to face the smiling Kotetsu.

"Good afternoon Kotetsu nii-san, I'm just on my way home from the Academy." She inched her way to her home, the thoughts of her soft bed seem more inviting than before.

"Great! Let me walk you home Little Frangrance." Kotetsu continued to follow her. She didn't actually dislike Kotetsu, it's just that he liked teasing her even more so than Genma-sensei and it wasn't really easy to control herself from pouncing on him. Mother would have her head if she was caught doing that. Hence Yoshiko stepped behind Kotetsu and walked behind him.

Kotetsu was glad to have found Little Fragrance aka his lucky charm for slacking again. Whenever she was around, it seemed like he would have a perfectly valid excuse for shirking his duties as the gate guard. Plus he could go to the Nara Compound for tea. Yoshino-san was a really nice cook with her signature mochi and egg custard. That would be a perfect treat for him after weeks of eating the plain onigiri while on guard duty at the gates with Izumo.

Kotetsu grinned secretly. Dear old Izumo will be wondering where he had disappeared to after going for a 'walk' to stretch his legs. Unfortunately it was a walk he didn't intend going back from for a long time. Hmm... Mochi... Wondered what the Nara Matriarch had in store for tea. Maybe he could even stay for dinner! Ahh... That will be ideal. A whole day of vacation, lazying in the Nara Compound.

"Hey how about a deal between you and I, Little Fragrance?" He asked the little girl who had him carrying her book bag for.

"What deal?" She asked knowingly. Being a Nara meant that she is quite lazy and didn't particularly liked doing troublesome things, hence she is probably rather sympathetic to his plight as a gate keeper. Kotetsu knew his little lucky charm has covered for him quite a few times from his teammate before. It was simple really, she pointed Izumo in the opposite direction of the Hokage building whenever she saw Kotetsu fleeing past her when she visited her father.

"Hmm... You keep Izumo off my back for the day and I will help you with whatever you need for the day." Kotetsu knew she was a growing poison specialist and a medic ninja hopeful with Genma the special Jonin as her tutor but gathering herbs was quite a hassle with the need to cut, wash and dry them carefully.

"Deal."

~Page Break~

Unfortunately for Kotetsu, the everything part did him in. The poor Chunin was currently at the mercy of a giggling little girl who had a little too much sugar making her a little crazy and she reminded him a lot of an overexcited chipmunk. Like a certain snake lady when she has too much dango.

Kotetsu yelped when he dodged yet another poorly thrown shuriken flying past his way. Yep he was officially on fetching weapons duty. Technically, the target was a far mark off from where he was, so he shouldn't get hit at all.

"Hey watch it! Even a blind bat can aim better than you!" Kotetsu yelled at the girl standing twenty feet away. Again another weapon flew past him, barely grazing him when he expertly moved out of the way. A kunai. She didn't suck that badly at kunai throwing.

"Hey that's one purpose!" He pointed a finger accusingly at the eight year old. "Yoshino-senpai!" He whined loudly to the older woman who was currently supervising their training aka Kotetsu-being-target-practice training session.

"Your dodging skills can do some work as well! Yoshiko change those kunai to senbon! Kotetsu, I expect you to dodge every single one!" The ex-special Jonin yelled from her spot under the tree where their mochi were waiting. That woman was scary as usual. Kotetsu wondered how Shikaku-san had managed to live with her everyday.

Kotetsu's eyes widened in horror. "No fair senpai!" That girl's accuracy with those long needles was rival to Genma when he was her age and that's saying something.

"But wouldn't Kotetsu-san become a hedgehog? Mom can I use those blunt needles?" The girl asked sweetly with a laugh in her voice. Ha. She's being mean! Kotetsu felt extremely insulted, did she just hinted that him a Chunin would not be able to dodge the attacks of an Academy brat?

"Alright then. Well since you are using blunt weapons, I expect you not to hold back." His Senpai was clearly enjoying this little training a little too much. Alright kid, you asked for it! Kotetsu decided to be serious for once. Knowing Genma's wicked ability for needles, his brat would definitely be better than most at it. The betting pool was on when Genma will be able to get her to tie her hair up using senbon or to start chewing on a senbon. Kotetsu was betting his money on a month's time. Aoba had his money on three weeks. The betting pool ranged from a week to a month; knowing how unfashionable needles are, Kotetsu knew that it would take a long time for a man without a single fashionable bone in his body to convince a noticeably vain little girl to do that. (Said girl wore chic styles for a shinobi when she thinks mom is not looking. Tying her hair and donning leather coats after Shikaku was one. Practical and fashionable rather than the red dress she was forced by her mother to wear to school.)

"I apologize beforehand Kotetsu-nii san." Yoshiko released two needles, flying directly at him. Too easy. Kotetsu dodged them quickly.

Three needles flew towards him when he was in a middle of dodging the first two. Tricky, still not good enough to get a Chunin. Kotetsu vaulted up from the tree he was next to, the needles falling lightly from the tree trunk. Kotetsu was an expert at weaponry and he knew that those needles wouldn't be able travel that far.

Oh shit! Kotetsu cursed when twelve needles headed towards him. Unlike before, they were traveling in different directions. Both his left and right side was being blocked and he was in mid-air. Heh, no problem. Kotetsu leapt down, effectively blocking that attack. That was one of Genma's easier moves, technically his easiest move. Well part of it anyways. The needles will always hit from both the left and the right giving the enemy a false sense of security before...

"Crap!" Another eight needles headed for him in point blank range. Of course the last part of that move was to attack the direction that the opponent had chosen. Would have worked on a Genin but Kotetsu was no Genin. Eyeing a branch, Kotetsu swung himself around it. This caused the needles to hit the tree branch instead.

"Stop." His senior said. The barrage of needles stopped after that. Another ten minute break was given. By now, Yoshiko had another task laid out for him. Herbs preparation in the Nara forest.

Kotetsu dragged himself along with the little girl who enthusiatically pointed out the different rare herbs that grew in the clan forests. Picking herbs was commonly a D-rank mission for most beginning Genin hence Kotetsu was prepared for another boring afternoon.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. Those rare herbs were found deep in the forest where the deer lived. The Nara deer are supposed to be gentle creatures of the forest that gave no trouble to the people collecting herbs there. Apparently what the Nara folks left out on that vital piece of information is that those deer are only gentle to the _Nara clan_ members collecting herbs.

Kotetsu found that out the hard way when Yoshiko had sent him to collect some belladonna, monkshood and nightshade. Being poisonous plants, Yoshiko was not supposed to collect them without an adult's supervision. Being the adult, Kotetsu was supposed to help her harvest the plants. Yoshiko had wanted to tag along with him but Yoshino would have none of it, insisting that her daughter helps to prepare a filling dinner for their guest.

Kotetsu was prodded by the stags that apparently did not trust him. He was not very popular with animals (ostriches didn't count, those birds downright had issues with him!) and the deer often followed him around warily. Getting poked in the buttocks while cutting herbs was not fun at all. Being repeatedly jabbed was plain irritating.

Kotetsu figured that instead of the relaxing day he was probably planning on; he had exchanged one tiring task for another taxing task. No plan of his ever seem to go smoothly... The Chunin grumbled to himself. Free dinner is probably the only consolation for him.

Indeed it was a filling dinner with lots of warm steamed rice, gyoza, tuna, egg rolls and clam soup stewed with some fresh herbs gathered. Unfortunately, Yoshino had also insisted on giving a large basketful of dinner to deliver to his dear partner Izumo. That meant that rather than returning to his comfortable apartment after the day-shift had ended, he had to make another trip to the guards' post for a personal dinner delivery! The guards' post is located on the opposite end of the village from the Jonin Complex that he stayed at. Knowing Izumo, that guy would be staying at his job for at least an hour or so more to sort out the paperwork (that guy was a perfectionist and all too serious at his job); this meant that there was no escape from this delivery. Plus Yoshino had said the food had to be delivered hot and she would know if her cute little junior decided to head off home instead.

"Why must I be everyone's errand boy?!" The young Chunin lamented to the sky while speeding off on his dinner delivery.

~Page Break~

That night was the perfect example of a clear beautiful night. The moon hang clear and bright in the sky with the many stars visible, a rare thing in the village with a vibrant night life. In the Nara Main Compound however, there was hardly any activity in most of the house. Yoshino and Shikaku had retired for the night; Shikaku was exhausted when he arrived home, skipping his nightly dinner with his son and instead opting to catch his precious sleep. Yoshino often slept early as well hence leaving two perfectly awake and bored eight year olds staring at each other.

Normally Shikamaru would be off playing his solo Shogi with himself, something that he admitted was boring while Yoshiko would be lost in another book of hers. However, the two Nara children didn't want to follow their nightly routine that day.

"Let's play a game!" Yoshiko suddenly spoke up after a failed attempt at cloud gazing, unfortunately there were no clouds that night. Shikamaru rolled over as if to show his interest in his sister's suggestion.

"Let's play cards! Father has some cards in the living room!" Grabbing her brother's hands and Yoshiko dragged her twin like a stack of potatoes to the living room in their search for some playing cards.

"How troublesome..." Shikamaru grumbled but still continued opening the drawers in their quest for playing cards. Yoshiko was knocking her fist gently on the wooden floor tiles. Knowing her mother's aversion towards anything that remotely resembles card games, her father had to hide his stash somewhere in the house. Yoshiko knew of their existence when she saw her father playing a round of show-hand with his old teammates once after her training.

Her father was sneaky. That she gave him credit. The duo had been searching for those cards for twenty minutes; strange as it is, Shikamaru hadn't complained how troublesome the whole thing was, instead he was searching with more energy that she had ever seen him with for her whole eight years with him.

"Found something!" Shikamaru hissed at his sister, his hands on a wooden box. Yoshiko hurried over, both having identical evil grins at discovering their father's secret stash.

"Open it!" Yoshiko's voice sounded eager and smug. They were so going to hide it once they were done. Gambling or not, she missed playing poker. She liked the fact that one can bluff their way through the game; like how she used to trick her friends and family members while playing the game back in the old world. Jean played it when she was fourteen, Yoshiko is physically only eight, but it didn't stop her from feeling wager about playing a game of bluff with a child genius like Shikamaru.

Shikamaru undid the simple lock on the box, Shikaku had underestimated the drive of children once again. Lifting the lid, the only sounds heard from the twins were a collective whisper-yell and Yoshiko covering Shikamaru's eyes.

"What in the world is this?!"

* * *

What do you think the two Nara twins uncovered from their little treasure hunt?

Hahahaha poor Kotetsu. Well those two are kinda one of my favorite characters with their antics. Another would be Omoi with his exaggerating tendencies, comical pessimism and his lollipop. Plus his relationship with his partner Karui. Guess I'm not really into the main characters. I'm actually planning to let the side characters get more screen time in this fic, wonder what's the take on that?

Hmm... I'm sorry to those that may have wanted Yoshiko to comfort Sasuke. Unfortunately while she has a really mature mind and may empathize with him; she doesn't understand his rational behind pushing everyone away. Their young friendship will definitely break apart, although to what extent I'm not going to tell you. To those who hoped that she would be close to Naruto; that will be kind of impossible. Their social circles do not match and their personalities clash a little too much. They will be civil but not buddy-buddy.

Two questions I would like to ask my readers would be:

-Who is your favorite Naruto character and why?

-Who do you think Yoshiko's precious person is? (Not crush! She's definitely not interested in little kids. Holy shit that sounded creepy.)


	6. Chapter 6

The Two Fawns:

Chapter 6: Nara Yoshiko, Medical Ninja of the Leaf

* * *

4 Years Later... (Currently Yoshiko is 12 years old)

"Stupid fish..." Yoshiko grumbled as the fish slapped her in the face with its tail again once she finished healing it. Training as a medical ninja was not all fun and games. She went home every day for the past six months to her mother hearing her mother nagging to the newly made Genin Shikamaru about being more like her... (She, in fact, felt that Shikamaru was better than her in many ways but her mom doesn't see it. For starters, the boy was a genius in his own right unlike the unfair advantage that she possessed.) She started taking her showers there after one week of nagging from her mother. Apparently she smelt like a wet market...

It wasn't her fault anyway! Fishes obviously had to smell like fish. Going through at least eight of them in a single training session meant that it was inevitable one or two of them will get her in the face. That didn't stop her trainers from laughing at her when that happened under their watch. Luckily she wore an apron before going in. Yoshiko was dressed in her 'work' clothes; a simple brown long-sleeved kimono styled shirt with the Nara clan symbols on its left sleeve, long black pants with her pants attached to her legs via bandaging, standard ninja sandals, her long brown hair tied into a high ponytail and a regular forehead protector. She wore her wire mesh armor under all that clothing should she have to go on a mission. If she was out on a mission she would tie her medic kit onto a white obi around her waist. The medic kit also contains storage scrolls of different medication, surgical and pills in their little bottles. She had managed to get a few standard storage scrolls from her father. Her weapon holster containing the basics would be strapped to her left leg.

It's like they had something against her, the trainers had said. Fishes were apparently very docile around other trainees before her. (Not many Shinobi were interested in medical ninjutsu till their Chunin days, hence she was currently the youngest resident trainee medical ninja in the hospital.)

"Stop wiggling!" She hissed at the fish before gently (it's difficult to do so, as it was a slippery struggling fish with fins and a strong tail) dumping it into the pool. Mystical Palm Technique was not that difficult to muster if not for those troublesome subjects.

Fish and mice. Yep, the hospital just had to choose those two animals that hated her with a passion for no logical reason at all. Getting finned in the face, bitten in the fingers was a common occurrence for the young medical ninja. She dares say she practiced her healing technique more on herself than on those horrid animals. Fortunately, she was almost done with the animal-for-practice stage of the training. Soon she will be deployed with squads on missions as a field medic; being one of the youngest, inexperienced medics meant that she will have to tag along with Genin squads before working her way up the ladder.

Training to be a medical ninja was more like a student learning in school via shadowing another medic while they go about their daily business or attending lectures. Often Yoshiko would find herself walking towards the Herbs department where several medicines and poisons would be developed. Herbology was one of her main subjects besides Anatomy, Battle Medicine, Surgery, Seal Operation, Acupuncture, and Toxicology. Acupuncture and Toxicology were not one of her core subjects but it was her area of specialty.

Most medics opt for Further Seal Operation and Further Surgery for it would enable them to carry out more complex surgeries in the hospitals. Acupuncture and Toxicology were not as popular due to their potential for offense in the battlefield rather than being more useful in the hospital. Apparently she was the first after Shizune to pick Toxicology in ten years. Toxicology was the specialized study of poisons and venom making. Herbology was the study of antidotes and anti-venoms. Most medics prefer learning how to treat than to poison.

Genma-sensei had been rather pleased with her choice after she told him during her now double weekly lessons with him. Her father had still wanted her to be able to attack opponents despite being a medical ninja due to the fact that enemy ninja tend to take out the medic before taking down the team; making her a prime target for them. She had been researching with the help of her sensei on the use of senbon needles as chakra blocks, that can either save a person's life or weaken them quickly. She had that idea when she first read about poisons that affected the chakra system via contamination. It was a work in progress, currently, she is able to halt one's blood flow using senbon but not the chakra system that was a lot more delicate without potentially killing the patient.

She would be allowed to go on more challenging missions soon according to Hikari, her mentor, and trainer. Hikari was a tall, slender woman in her mid-thirties with a practical short brown hair cut. She had called the woman Nohara-san, only to be insisted upon to be addressed as Hikari-senpai as the other formal address made her sound old.

She had been in the Medical Corps for two years and she hadn't spoke to anyone in her old class besides Shikamaru. There was simply no time for her to even interact with her family with 12-hour hospital shifts and lessons all rolled into one large messy snowball of work. She had wished that she can maybe spend more time with her brother, but she was simply too tired on most days to even talk to him during dinner. Working at the hospital had made her less social amongst her peers and currently the only interaction she had with anyone not a patient or medic was her family, Genma-sensei and sometimes Raido-sensei.

"Hikari-senpai, when will I be allowed to go on missions?" Yoshiko asked her mentor curiously. She had been training for the past one year while her classmates were still in the Academy. Apparently Hikari-senpai was impressed by her chakra control when she saw Yoshiko controlling the leaf by making it dance around on her palm after being successful at the leaf exercise. Hikari-Senpai was a patient teacher with her, teaching her ways to increase her speed at healing (she can heal with the Mystical Palm Technique after three months, but it was not very effective as it took her twenty minutes to heal a fish). She had reduced it to ten minutes and she hoped to make better progress.

"Probably in a few weeks time. I'm glad to see you so eager but your first official mission will most likely to be on some C-rank mission with little or no drama. Now here's the list of missions for today." Hikari-Senpai said with a slight smile at her before passing her a mission scroll for her.

Five thousand ryo for a medic during the training session for Team Gai at Training Grounds 18. Team Gai? She hadn't heard that the Blue Beast of Konoha had snagged himself a Genin squad. Highly unusual. She shuddered slightly at the thought of three other students dressed in Maito Gai's famous green jumpsuit along with his all too sparkly smile. It's going to be a long day, she could feel it in her bones.

~Page Break~

"Nice to meet you. I'm Nara Yoshiko, the medic for today's training." She had arrived early at the Training Ground where there was a girl dressed in a sleeveless Chinese inspired shirt and long pants with her hair tied into two buns doing target practice. She looked quite familiar... but Yoshiko couldn't place a finger on where she had seen her before.

Target practice? Why would anyone need a medic during target practice? She was supposed to heal wounds right? Her answer came in the form of a boy with bloody hands and bandages unraveled. Problem 1 solved. Now she was supposed to report to the Jonin sensei but she hadn't seen hair or hide of Maito Guy. Putting together her chakra, she tried to sniff out Maito Guy within her current range of 20 meters.

Yep, she sensed it alright. It was charging towards her at back neck speed! Another unfamiliar chakra was slightly behind him, too charging like a bull.

"Dynamic Entry!" A green blur shot past her. If she wasn't trained in the art of dodging, Yoshiko was sure she was going to be sawed into half.

"I'm so glad to meet you, beautiful flower of Konoha. I'm Maito Guy, the handsome Blue Beast of Konoha!" The man in the shiny bowl-cut all but yelled at her with a large gleaming smile showing off his pearly whites.

She could see herself nodding mutely at him and handing him the mission scroll before placing her medical kit down. Maito Gai was known for his rather weird tendencies, but Hikari-Senpai was not exaggerating when she spoke of the man.

"Ah, the hip and cool attitude! I see you are as unyouthful as my eternal rival Kakashi!" Yep definitely, she could feel herself deflating slightly at the prospect of the whole morning with Maito Gai and team.

"This is Neji, Lee and Tenten," he motioned at all three of his students. Neji was the boy with bleeding hands, her patient. Lee was Gai's mini-me while Tenten was the girl practicing her targets.

"I'm Nara Yoshiko, your medic for today." She answered simply keeping herself as professional as possible.

After the intro was done, she walked towards Neji, the Hyuga boy with bleeding hands. "Your hands please, Hyuga-san." Hyugas were known for their over formal behavior. She didn't want him to find her impolite.

"Thank you, Nara-sama." Nara-sama? She wasn't her father or Shikamaru, the heir. But she hadn't bothered correcting him and instead concentrated on his bleeding hands. The familiar soft green glow of the Mystical Palm lighted in her hands. Close the broken blood vessels first, repair the broken muscle tissues, nothing too difficult for her after months of healing broken bones, punctured internal organs under the supervision and help of Hikari-Senpai.

Jonins and Chunins tend to get badly injured in missions if the missions went wrong or bad. Jonins were the worst, they would escape from the hospital before they can be officially discharged. Hatake Kakashi was the worst of the lot. She had to catch a few escaping ninjas before; often failing miserably, much to the amusement of her patients. She could vividly remember an incident with the famous Copy-Ninja where he left her a scarecrow in his place in the hospital bed with a note, 'bye kiddo'.

Once his hands were as good as new, she walked off to Lee who had suffered a few torn muscles after doing 200 hundred push-ups while she was healing Neji. The morning passed with her healing Neji and Lee alternatively. Once they started sparring, it was worst with the two heavy hitters going all out against each other. Yoshiko was pretty much drained after the 4-hour mission; those two made use of her presence to the max, once they finished a round, she would patch them up with her Mystical Palm and then she will have to do it over and over again. Yoshiko was pretty sure she healed the two more than twelve times. She was something like a walking band-aid for the two boys.

~Page Break~

Exhausted by lunchtime, she dragged her chakra-drained body to the front desk to pass the Chunin her mission scroll. Lunch... She can hear her stomach growling like a beast. Her bento was unfortunately at the hospital, the mission went on longer that it was supposed to be. No way in hell was she eating those horrid food pills in her medical kit. She would not take those unless it was an emergency. They tasted more like a horrible marriage between mud and rubber.

The Chunin gave her the pay and took her mission scroll from her in exchange. In Konoha, missions scrolls have to be approved by the Hokage himself from a D-rank mission to a S-rank mission. This rule was implemented by the Second Hokage as he had wanted to regulate the missions for the different ranks of shinobi. (Yoshiko just thought the guy loved paperwork a little too much.) The ninja or team would then receive the mission scroll. (For her case, working at the hospital meant that her mission scrolls like most medics are delivered there daily.) After receiving the scroll, it was mission time. Finally depending on the severity of the mission, a mission report may or may not be required to be given along with the mission scroll before payment is made.

"I'm tired of all those D-Ranks! I wanna have a real mission! I'm ready for it!" A loud, obnoxious and familiar voice hollered from the mission assignment desk where the Hokage sat.

That Naruto again... Yoshiko signed after handing the Chunin the mission report. As she was so prepared to get the hell out of the room, the Hokage said something that made the Nara almost collapse in despair.

"Ahh... Yoshiko Nara, you will make a good addition to Team Seven's escort mission." The old man said after taking a long drag out of his pipe. The medic and health-conscious girl in her wanted to admonish the old man for being a chain smoker for its very unhealthy while the other lazy Nara in her wanted to go for lunch and a nap. She was not sure what she wanted to do. But the ninja in her said she shouldn't disregard the Hokage.

"Hai." She simply replied and pulled herself up a little more and briefly ran through her temporary partners for the mission. Sakura, the top Kunoichi in her class when she was there but a hopeless fangirl of Sasuke. Sasuke, looking all broody and grumpy, she hadn't spoken to him for two years. Naruto, the clumsy and rash ninja, who she knew hadn't had a word called subtle in his dictionary. Why was she so unlucky? She almost cried in her mind.

Then when she looked at the Jonin Sensei of the team of misfits, her heart lightened slightly. Hatake Kakashi, the exact opposite of Maito Gai. Excellent. She knew that guy took his jobs seriously from the times she patched him up in the hospital after he is done with a mission. Nothing very serious, chakra exhaustion, broken ribs, scraps... but his bad habit of running out of the hospital before he is okay to go irks her whenever she was the medic assigned to look after him. Seems like every cloud has a silver lining. She didn't realize that she was staring at the silver haired man until he extended his usual greeting of 'yo'. She turned scarlet immediately with the Jonin glancing at her.

"..." Was her only reply when Naruto charged at her. He was loud as usual with his orange jacket and signature blonde locks.

"Hey, Yoshiko-chan! I'm on a real mission ttaebayo!" He hollered and slapped a hand on her shoulder in greeting while Sakura simply smiled at her. She waved a hand in a weak reply.

"Hn." That was Sasuke for you. There was no sign that showed that he knew her from a long time again, seven years actually. She was one of those whom he pushed away after the Massacre; well not that she minded it a lot. She respected his need for space and did not attempt to reach out to him at all.

So lost in her assessment of the team that it was rudely broken when a clearly drunk man stumbled into the room. "Heh, four brats are supposed to protect me? One's a midget while the other look like she is about to faint. Father must be a weakling. Weaklings. I'm Tazuna, the master bridge builder from the Wave Country. You will protect me with your life." He all but insulted them at the moment of their first meeting.

How dare he? All Yoshiko saw was red. Weaklings huh? He could insult her all he wanted but no one gets away with insulting her family! The wheels in her mind were turning fast like a Nara in battle. Glasses: well-kept but old, speaking of past wealth. Body language: slightly nervous but attempting to hide it with his insulting attitude. Words that spoken and tone: he had wanted stronger ninja to protect him. This is a C-rank. No enemy ninja, clearly he felt that the threat will be bigger than what Genin can handle. Chunin leveled threats perhaps. But she had no proof. Well then she would have to try and pull off an impromptu interrogation.

"Weaklings you say? Why so insistent of us protecting your worthless little life when you have little faith in us? Are you trying to say the danger is too high for us to handle?" She questioned the old man slowly, making sure to let her words sink in. Raido-sensei did that a lot when he tried to break her mind during a Genjutsu training session where she had to prevent a secret from being handed over to him. She often managed to keep her secret for a few hours without spilling the beans or sometimes outlast him until the Genjutsu wore off. He was a member of the assassination squad hence, she was taught a few tricks from him whenever he substitute Genma-sensei as her teacher.

Step two: killing intent. She was not as intense as Raido-sensei or Genma-sensei. They had shown her how to do it and had comically compared it to a declawed cat showing its non-existent claws. Against ninjas would be useless but a civilian... Tazuna visibly whitened considerably. Now... Give me your information. Yoshiko thought smugly.

Kakashi felt the Killing Intent from the young medic. At least, what it was supposed to be. It felt a lot more like a tiny kitten purring at him, but that was only to the battle-worn man. She was interrogating the master bridge builder to a large degree of success. Ibiki-san should have snapped her up like lightning... Oh, it's Nara Yoshiko.

The only daughter of Nara Shikaku. Of course, her father would push his precious little girl as far as possible from Ibiki-san as he could despite her mother working with T&I long ago before marriage. Shikaku had always had this traditional notion of protecting women, it simply extended further for his little precious. Interrogation with a suspicious client was okay with him, but not in front of the Hokage, he had to step in.

"Yoshiko step down." He whispered to her easily with their close proximity when she stood in front of him to question the bridge builder. He too had his suspicions of the man but he had little choice but to wait it out to see if it was confirmed or unfounded.

She compiled immediately, he was in charge and she knew that. Little Yoshiko may have a streak of ferocity and impulsiveness in her, but he can easily tame her or cool her down. She will listen to reason unlike the other two of his students. That little exchange may have escaped his three little students, but the Hokage and Iruka were non-the-wiser. They knew something was up. He glanced at the Hokage for direction but the old man simply gave a to-go signal. The tension in the air was thick.

Naruto, being Captain Oblivious diffused the situation by taking note of how he was insulted for being vertically challenged. This lead to him trying to attack the bridge-builder but Kakashi stopped him, telling the boy about the rule against attacking a client.

"In case you are worried. I am an elite ninja of the Leaf while Yoshiko here is one of the best poison users in her generation." The bridge-builder looked slightly relieved but visibly turned green when the said girl gave him a sadistic smile. Hmm... What was he hiding?

~Page Break~

"Mom, I'm home!" She shouted to her mother in the kitchen as soon as her shoes came off. She walked off to her room to place her bag and take her long-awaited shower.

Ahh... The wonders of warm showers... Yoshiko almost purred in delight. She took her own sweet time, lathering her body with lots of body wash, messaging her head while shampooing her long hair, taking a relaxing facial wash. Indeed, she was unlike most kunoichi who take a record two-minute showers.

After getting out of her personal bathroom (the Nara household had three bathrooms); she went on to powder her whole body, comb her hair and moisturize her skin with her mother's homemade lotion. She felt fresh and clean.

While most of her classmates back at the Academy hadn't minded getting dirty and staying like that for the whole day; Yoshiko had been the clean freak amongst them all. Hence leading to her storing hot water, soap bars and many basic toiletries in the utility storage scrolls her father brought her, aka nicked from the Jonin storage room. (Turns out her father didn't care much for the rules.) He had given her ten scrolls for storing equipment, best of all, he also taught her how to easily reuse the scrolls.

Grabbing one toiletries scroll, she dropped it into her bag. The next one was the extra medical kit in its scroll form, in it went. The third contained some of the spare poison, glass vials, herbs, and senbon; if she ever runs out of them. Her father was nice that way. He too gave Shikamaru some storage scrolls and taught him how to use them, but her brother had found them troublesome and hadn't paid attention when their father showed them how to use it. Quoting Shikamaru, "Storage scrolls are made for women since they are so troublesome." That earned him a smack in the head with mother's frying pan when she passed by.

Two boxes of senbon should be enough along with eight poison bombs, four kunai knives and three vials of poison. She dropped them into her brand-new weapons hoister. No shuriken for her thank you very much. (apparently she had little to no talent in handling shuriken even with training)

Next, she had to pack a backpack of clothes. Five changes of the same outfit should enough for daytime. Four changes of nightwear will be more than enough. Coming from a ninja family, her mother taught her

Finally her most important pack as a medical ninja. Basic surgical equipment, blood pills, bandages, anesthetic, food pills and her senbon needles for medical purposes found their way into the small cream colored bag. She was ready for her first C-rank mission. She felt quite excited despite herself during dinner that night.


	7. Chapter 7

The Two Fawns:

Chapter 7: Meet Team Seven and The Not Quite Demonic Brothers

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Hey Guys I'm back! Love all that feedback I'm getting! Enjoy reading! Do keep the reviews going! I like to read through them and see how I may further improve my writing.

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Kakashi had asked them to meet at noon in front of the village gates for their mission. This meant she had the whole morning to herself, a rare opportunity to spend time with her equally lazy brother. Currently, the duo were laying on the soft grass patch in the clan compound. Shikamaru's training start in afternoon, hence he was too free at the moment.

"A game of Shogi?" Yoshiko nudged her brother with a slight grin.

"Just like the old times." Shikamaru replied back with a smile before flipping over with the grace of a trained ninja to fetch their board. Yoshiko would get the tea and snacks while he set up the game.

Yoshiko knew she will be eventually defeated by her brother unless he held back, something he never did. It was simply not an act of a good sport to not play to his/her fullest potential. They liked discussing strategies over the game and relaxed with each other while engaged in a battle of wits. Yoshiko found spending time with Shikamaru was enriching for her brain as well as fun; many had compared her brother to an old man, that she would disagree, he was simply someone that knew how to have fun in his own way. He was never influenced by peer pressure or what that was considered was normal. Shikamaru wouldn't care for it; people simply didn't understand him well except for a few choice people like Chouji.

The sight that Shikaku came back to for a document was the sight of his two children currently exchanging strategies over the board. So lost in their game that the two hadn't noticed their father's presence in the room.

"Aish! You're are too impatient. Why would you sacrifice your Silver General to take out my Gold General; this will leave your Rook vulnerable to my Sliver General? That move is reckless and too risky!" Shikamaru asked his sister, slightly perturbed by her aggressive strategy. One would be surprised to see the usually laid back Nara so anxious. Shikamaru really puts his all into the game, the only one who came close to defeating him and on the same level as him was his annoying, bossy and scary yet at the same time nice, sweet and protective sister. Woman was confusing and he had yet managed to figure out the one he would consider the least annoying woman he ever met.

"Why would you retreat when your Rook could have taken another two of my pieces? That's really silly of you Shika!" His sister retorted. The nickname Shika was something that Yoshiko started calling him when she was old enough to talk, a sign of her close relationship with her brother. Her words may sound sharp but it held a tinge of fondness in them. Shikamaru felt that though he was supposed to be older; Yoshiko sometimes acted as the older sibling rather than him. Still it doesn't take away the fact that woman are confusing, annoying and troublesome. Well he wouldn't mind being around this woman when she grows up, then again he may be biased towards his own twin who shared his space for a large part of his life.

Shikaku resisted the temptation to throw his head back and laugh at their complete opposite manner of playing. The two advising each other on basically opposite approaches was hilarious to watch as well. It was like a cat and a dog meeting and speaking to each other for the first time with completely different gestures and language. One was quite the aggressor, an effective strategy at making sure the enemy cannot catch her for she is too scattered but leaves herself open to other threats. The other was cautious, losing minimal pieces to pursue his goals but leaves himself weak to a stronger opponent's attack once he gets boxed in. Strangely enough, the duo can actually communicate within the same vein when they are ganging up against him with Yoshiko finishing Shikamaru's statements for him and vice versa. It must be the magic of sharing a womb for ten months. Shikaku wouldn't deny that the bond those two share was strong. A single Nara was hard enough to deal with but two; Shikaku chuckled at the prospect of any future foes that cross the duo's path. One was quick to react and protective when her loved ones are threatened like a doe while the other was steady and calm like the head of a herd. He couldn't wait till these two little fawns start growing up.

Yoshiko was definitely the one more inclined towards supplementing her allies' attacks as well as defense. Shikamaru worked best when covered by Chouji if they were taking down an opponent. Shikaku knew that most Nara are not heavy-hitters, hence their weariness towards being in the direct fire of the enemy. This trait was expressed in both Yoshiko's and Shikamaru's styles when playing Shogi. Yoshiko may like to attack her opponents but she does so in an extremely cautious manner and does not take them on openly while Shikamaru preferred hiding in the shadows and trapping his opponents or retreating to protect himself.

Shogi really showcases one's personality hmm... Shikaku mused to himself.

Just then, his daughter was the first to sense his presence. The sensory ability in his daughter was stronger than that of Shikamaru; but she was no match against most Jonins or elite Chunins who can conceal or suppress their chakra with an active effort.

"Dad." They shared identical grins before they both made way for their father to sit in the opposing side of them. The document was left forgotten while the three Naras played a match with against one another. Yoshiko and Shikamaru worked well to try to defeat their father; Yoshiko was relentlessly reading through his moves while Shikamaru worked his way around with his sister's findings, effectively forcing Shikaku to change his tactics once in a while to outsmart his two clever children.

~Page Break~

Noon soon came and Yoshiko had to leave for her mission. Shikamaru had mumbled a good luck to her while saying something along the lines of missions being a drag. The game was not over yet; Yoshiko made both her brother and father promise to wait for her return to finish the game before running out of the house after grabbing her things and putting on her ninja gear.

Oh no, she was so going to be late if she doesn't hurry! Unlike most Chunins and Jonins who possessed the handy trick of the Body Flicker Technique where they can transport themselves quickly from one place to another in a matter of mere seconds; Genins like her were resigned to walking or running from Point A to Point B. Plus medical ninjas need that technique for them to move quickly to save a patient's live. One second in an effort to save the patient's life could make a huge difference in chances of survival.

Being late for her missions would not reflect nicely on her records. Running hurriedly and dodging the numerous stands that passed her way, Yoshiko was glad to have arrived on the dot. The majority of the team that she was working with had arrived with the exception of the hyperactive ninja.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Naruto arrived with a dramatic entrance (it was not on the scale of Gai and Lee) and a cloud of dust. His team used to his appearance style had sidestepped the dust cloud. Unfortunately, Yoshiko was not used to his style and was left choking on the flyaway dust. The client was already there and drunk, Yoshiko was sad that he was not caught in the dust cloud. (It would be a great wake-up call for the old man.)

Walking out of the village, Yoshiko soon became alert to her surroundings; Genma-sensei had told her that should there be enemy ninjas, they would often take out the medical ninja before the rest. The reason would be due to the fact that without the medic; the team cannot be healed and thus would be taken out quickly and easily.

Gathering a small amount of her chakra; she focussed on her surroundings, currently sensing no one with a lot of chakra or a ninja leveled chakra signature. It was difficult to keep it up, the constant loud bickering from Naruto and Sakura was annoying her to no end. Raido-sensei would have tied them up on a tree long ago, knowing the man's low tolerance for insubordination from his stern teaching methods.

Bickering during a mission and not putting in their 100% was a display of unprofessionalism. It was against the Rules of a Shinobi. Much as Yoshiko would like to dismiss the book as nonsense; that particular rule was also practical. Being a ninja was an occupation, if she should compare a distracted ninja to a real occupation back in her world, it would be comparable to a policeman who had forgotten his gun in a drug raid. Besides putting themselves in danger, they would be putting their teammates in danger as well.

Yoshiko decided not to show her disapproval. Why? It was because Kakashi was their sensei and it was not her place to tell them, rather it was his. She know that the sliver-haired man was probably going to tell them on way or another, hence not bothering herself to offend her superior in this mission.

Kakashi was most likely aware of her training as a sensor via the file that will be given to him when she was added to his team as a medical ninja. Hell, he probably would have noticed from the way she was concentrating her chakra. She made it a point as well to tap the status quo at him using the Konoha standard code.

Nothing out of the ordinary... Was that chakra? She casually looked at the water puddle before her. _'Chakra is in the puddle of means that those people are quite powerful, definitely shinobi, at least Chunin leveled. Two of them.'_ She tapped to the only Jonin in the group.

 _'Don't respond to trap. Pretend nothing is up.'_ He tapped back, his chakra tensing up significantly although his body language had not suggest anything else. The other two Genin were too aware of the situation. The chakra concentration in the puddle was too suspicious to miss. It was not a subtle trap but an obvious one that had not required a sensor to sniff it out. The trio had tensed up slightly. It was subtle with them walking closer to the bridge builder than normal. But they kept their line of formation. Naruto however, was oblivious and was currently sulking to himself over some sort of insult that Sakura had hurled at him. Tapping in code to him had not worked, most likely he skipped that lesson as per usual.

 _'Course of action?'_ Sasuke tapped.

 _'Protect bridge-builder.'_ Kakashi tapped back. Sakura and Sasuke tapped affirmation.

Out from the puddle came two men with large metal claws and chains dipping in poison along with gas masks. They tied their chains around Kakashi and ripped him apart.

"One down." They said together. Yoshiko flinched slightly at the sight of the Jonin's remains. Turning her concentration back on those two, she saw Sasuke attacking them before they could reach the bridge builder.

Gas masks? "Look out, do not come in close contact with them! They use poison that are gaseous in nature!" She yelled at the raven haired boy before stopping him in his tracks with the Shadow Possession Technique. Stupid stupid Sasuke, always charging in without accessing the opponents first. A leopard never changes his spots, how true it was in this situation.

"Shadow Possession Technique success." She heaved a sigh of relief. Sasuke retreated when she released the technique on him, he stood by their side where Sakura hadn't left her position and protected the bridge builder while Naruto was in shock. There was no time to snap Naruto out of it. It's going to be troublesome but she will have to make sure that those three survive. God, she sounded so much like Shikamaru!

"Sasuke attack them but hold your breath when you fight against them, one whiff of that poison and you will be in a deep creek. I will back you up, we have to move the fight far away from Sakura and the rest." Yoshiko hissed urgently at the Uchiha, praying that he would let go of his pride and follow her advice for once.

He did, surprising her in the process. He engaged them quickly, making the two's chains entangle with each other while Yoshiko moved her shadows towards them, hoping to trap them.

They seemed to get her plan once they see the shadow coming towards them; Demon Brothers released the chains immediately and one of them charged towards Naruto with his claws outstretched. The other ran towards Sakura. Heh, rule 1 'medical ninja are not to engage in combat for safety reasons'; it seemed like she will have to break the rules. Trusting Sasuke to handle the other one headed for Naruto; she rushed to assist Sakura.

Sakura won't be able to protect Tazuna and herself as well as attack at the same time; alone Yoshiko knew Sakura would be able to handle the fight fine with her backing the other girl up, but she will have to be the one attacking the opponent herself as Sakura cannot leave the bridge builder's side. The mission took priority and protecting the client was important.

Fortunately, the Demon Brothers didn't know that she had a couple of tricks up her sleeve besides her Shadow Technique. Grabbing one of her assailants' leg, she sent electrical charges through his leg.

"Lightning Release: Nerve Shock. Success." She uttered dryly when the missing nin collapsed onto the ground, his body not coordinating with his mind. He tried to move his legs only to have his neck move to the side. It would only last for three minutes; she hadn't been able to sent out nerve shocks strong enough to last for long periods of time yet.

Grabbing the wire strings, she motioned to Sakura to help tie the missing ninja up against a tree. Sasuke was about done as well when she sensed Kakashi's chakra appearing again. It was a substitution? Why hadn't she felt the spike in chakra replacement?

"Yoshiko, your sensory abilities are fine for your age and experience. I simply suppress my chakra one second after the Replacement." Kakashi said calmly to the now flustered little girl. She didn't like to be caught by surprise, she liked being in control. She turned to glare at him as if to ask him to justify giving them such a scare. Kakashi understood the reference of Genma referring to his little apprentice as cute; with her flushed cheeks and her erratic breathing, Kakashi was reminded of a frightened kitten that was snarling at him the big mean dog.

"Why would I do that? Hmm... Didn't you wonder if the Demon Brothers were out for us or the bridge-builder? I was merely confirming your suspicion towards this mission. Tazuna, you and I will have a talk." Kakashi stated gravely. It was one thing to lie about the details of a mission to try get a cheap deal out of Konoha, the most outrageous part of the whole thing was endangering the lives of children.

Tazuna launch on and on about the shipping giant Gato and Co., how they took control of the Wave Country, how the people were suffering back in his hometown, how the bridge would save them and at the end of the tale gave a ridiculous half-assed sob story of his grandson. Being a hardened ANBU veteran, Kakashi could say that he was not moved by the old man's tale at all. His three little Genins however were a different story with their body language expressing clear pity for the bridge-builder. Nice little brats, Kakashi thought. The Nara brat however showed disinterest in the whole tale; in fact he could say this little girl was prepared to abandon this mission and leave Tazuna to the wolves. Naras were often ruthless in this aspect; they can be extremely loyal and protective to a fault with their loved ones, but a stranger who ruffled their feathers would be left in the cold. This made them excellent strategist, often through with their opponents and minimizing the damage received by their teammates. The herd mentality that they had went both ways. Anyone endangering the herd was a big no-no and threat, anyone not endangering the herd was no of any interest to them.

Kakashi found Yoshiko Nara interesting to say the least. Her father often bemoan that her soft heart may get her killed one day, but he was seeing none of that gentle deposition at the moment. Rather, the brunette was acting like she didn't give a damn towards the potential loss of life and was simply waiting for his orders, choosing to follow them instead. Heh. Classic sign of Nara laziness, she cannot be bothered to make her opinion known or argue with the three other Genin she was forced to work with. Kakashi concluded that with the right push, that little girl can be the second coming of Morino Ibiki in terms of ruthlessness even if the girl herself doesn't know it yet. Currently, she has the level of scariness as a little white rabbit.

Kakashi had plenty of time to figure his three cute little students over the time spent completing D-rank missions and the hours they spent waiting for him to appear. One had been more interested in romance than being a kunoichi, another had an unhealthy obsession with revenge and the last member wanted acknowledgement and respect from others.

"This mission will at least be a B-rank. It is out of your current league. This mission is out of its acceptable perimeters. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Yoshiko, you can decide to abandon this mission and return to the Konoha or you can opt to complete it." Kakashi decided to give them a choice. Even with Jonin enemy ninjas, Kakashi was confident he will be able to pull through it easily if he was alone. However, these four brats made things a lot more complex. Kakashi was sure they would either be a hindrance (Sakura and Naruto) or no help at all (Yoshiko and Sasuke). It was up to them to give him more work or he can go back home for a re-read session of all the Icha Icha series he had.

~Page Break~

Naruto had to pull all the theatrics, didn't he? Yoshiko grumbled to herself as she healed up the now panicking blonde who had decided skewering his hand that had poison in them was an excellent way of proving a point. She hadn't thought of the levels of stupidity her blonde teammate had. If Naruto had pushed the Kunai in an outward direction, it would have forced the poison out of the blood system, hell she was about to praise the blonde for his quick thinking on neutralizing the poison; but no, the idiot just have to drive the knife deep into his outstretched palm.

He had declared that he would protect Tazuna until he finished building the bridge, leaving a rather smug old man. Sakura and Sasuke had not oppose to his rather stupid decision hence Yoshiko saw little point in doing so. Instead she was extremely pissed at blondie's lack of brains.

Giving him an icy glare while she wrapped his hand up with a bandage (to allow the antidote to better mix into his blood, she left a small bit not healed for that purpose), she reprimanded him for his rash actions, "Naruto, I hope you would have better sense in future than to do that! Forcing out a poison means you point the kunai in an outward manner. Didn't you listen to Iruka-sensei when he was explaining that during a First Aids class?!" She had not expect her voice to get shrilled and more agitated as she chewed a now gulping Naruto's head out. Luckily for him, she had the antidote to the rather commonplace poison that the Demon Brothers used on their weapons.

At her screeching, Naruto gave her a sheepish smile before muttering about how he had decided to cut class during that particular lesson. Why had she not thought of that, Yoshiko rolled her eyes. But regardless of that fact, she continued her tirade, "Uzumaki Naruto, do that again and I will personally make sure you're sorry!" She finished with a flourish before slapping him on the back hard.

Naruto started to grumble about how scary she was and how correct Shikamaru was about his scary sister... Then Naruto gave her a foxy grin and removed the bandages to show no wound in his hands. Yoshiko simply gave a huff of exasperation at him. The other four people in the group looked slightly admonished at the young girl chewing Naruto's head out before leaving the scene.

Looking back at the Demon Brothers tied to a tree, she found herself reassessing the duo. The Demon Brothers were supposed to be a formidable pair who can take down their opponents quickly and easily. They had a wide range of weapons and poisons. Some of the poisons she found on their person made her wonder how lucky they were that the Demon Brothers had not chose to use them. Metallic poisons and a variety of water snake poisons were nasty things to work with, she was not skilled enough to handle poisons of a metallic nature. It seemed like the Demon Brothers were either not taking them seriously or their main intention were to not kill them. Heh, the missing ninjas infamous for their deadly ways not wanting to kill them? That would be a ridiculous assumption!

Most likely the duo had slighted their abilities a little too much. They thought that they were up against a bunch of snot-nose brats freshly out of the Academy. How naive. Although it was hard not to see why they felt that they had an overwhelming large advantage over her team. They had the element of surprise to take out the strongest link in the group and most Genins do not specialize in medical ninjutsu hence they will not be good at countering poisons or large gaping wounds. Not that there were no other Genin level medics like her; it's just that most will not be summoned to ensure the success of a C-ranked mission. Most medics rather collect information and gain experience through taking part complex operations in the hospitals. Much as she would be embarrassed at her rather mediocre surgery skills (ahem Hikari-Senpai said she always looked a little green during surgery); her poisoning skills were more than up to standard!

"Hey Demon Brothers, you wouldn't mind me taking these away right?" She gave them a million watt smile while she pocketed their poisons. The group had moved far ahead of her, Kakashi had expected her to knock them out or the like with her knock-out gas hence shepherding the group away lest they get caught in her poison cloud.

The Demon Brother simply glared at her while she blew sleeping pollen on them promptly sending them off to dream land. The Yamanakas were extremely generous with this flower's pollen when she requested for a pack from Inoichi-san while they were having the usual Ino-Shika-Chou dinner gathering a week ago. (She had exhausted all the available flowers from the Nara side of the forest and her father had not allowed her to harvest more flowers.) They called it the Golden Pollen, a fitting name for one with shimmering golden petals and pollen. In small doses, it would induce a deep sleep for a whole day. In large doses and mixed with a spoonful of snake fangs (preferably vipers), she can leave someone in a near death state via a deep sleep that they cannot awake from unless the antidote was given. Ironically, the antidote was made of a blend of the same plant's roots, a dash of arrowroot, ginseng mixed throughly in green tea. She made a glass jar worth of the poison and its antidote and currently, had a few vials of them on her person.

"Demon brothers, what a joke! More like the Knock-Out brothers!" She gave a slight snigger at the two snoring missing ninjas. They hardly looked dangerous at all with them both out like a light and slumped over in a lazy position.

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Sorry people but school will be starting soon for me... So instead of 2 chapters per week, I might only be able to manage one per week. Hope you guys would understand :)


	8. Chapter 8

The Two Fawns:  
Chapter 8: A Demon of the Hidden Mist

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Being surrounded by mist was not fun, being surrounded by chakra infused mist was plain irritating with a clear capital I. Not only was Yoshiko straining her eyes to make sense of what was five meters in front of her hands, she had to concentrate twice as hard to sense out her opponent. Meeting Zabuza Momochi was supposed to be extremely scary with her trembling in fear like the other three Genin in front of her while he happily announced that there were eight ways to kill them. She was only scared when the Killing Intent came, her breaths coming out short and her palms were beginning to sweat as she thought about how screwed they were with only Kakashi to save them. If Kakashi got himself captured or died, they would be easily slaughtered by Zabuza Momochi. When she thought about the ways she would die, she wanted to simply run away. Yoshiko Nara was no Naruto, she was not brave or noble like him, she would rather save her own skin. After all, she had a sense of self-preservation...

Bad thoughts! She cursed herself for it. Don't be a coward! But who wouldn't be one in front of a Legendary Swordsman? She's not an idiot. She was a master at running away but she could not abandon her fellow comrades! Tazuna could die in a hole for all she cared but she was not going to let people who hadn't done anything to her die. Clawing her palms till they bled, she struggled to maintain rational thought. Think positive! Come on, take control, Nara Yoshiko! Umm... Could she just drop this whole mission like a hot potato? Think, what would she have done if Shikamaru was the one in danger? The answer came quickly - analyze the situation and buy time.

The Killing Intent in the air was a lot more intense than what she was used to, but being exposed to it frequently during her training made her slightly more resistant than the three Genin who were obviously still unable to function due to fear. Raido-sensei had used it in his Genjutsu-training for her. To fight off the Killing Intent required two simple steps: a clear, logical head and a calm mind. Killing Intent was meant to intimidate, it would not kill her... Yoshiko repeated the mantra several times in her head.

Zabuza Momochi was not a man with low intelligence. He was afterall a member of the Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure. Legendary swordsman or not, any sane ninja would take advantage of the element of surprise, plus that was how his iconic Silent Killing worked anyway. Note the word Silent in the mentioned technique. Rather than being silent, he was talking way too much. Strange. Which brought her to her next point and question, what was Zabuza's main motive? She needed background information to make a hypothesis. However, to form a hypothesis meant that she needed Zabuza to continue giving information or Kakashi if he knew about the exploits of the missing ninja.

Strange as it sounds, Yoshiko felt that Zabuza was not seriously trying to fight them at all. More like the man wanted some entertainment and intellectual conversation with fellow ninjas, she mused bitterly. Surely Gato would have told Zabuza to kill them all quickly, but Zabuza appeared to be more interested in holding a conversation than killing the lot of them right now. That led her to conclude that the businessman was most likely had a brain the size of a bird's egg and was stupid enough to cause Zabuza to seek intelligent conversations with his supposed opponents. And perhaps Zabuza didn't like his employer that much.

Might as well take advantage of it. Yoshiko was not a front line attacker, but she would attack if given an opportunity to. The cloudy weather of the Wave Country gave rise to long shadows and shadows are friends of the Nara Clan. Zabuza's excessive rambling and not moving from his position had allowed her to sniff him out and currently, her shadow was weaving around the trees that he was hiding in. Damn, her chakra itself was a struggle for her to control with her fear always trying to crawl back in. Take control, she repeated in her mind.

Yoshiko resisted the temptation to fist pump the air in triumphant when her shadow connected with Zabuza's. Zabuza was stunned, hence losing his concentration on the mist technique that he was maintaining via chakra. The mist started to grow thin, revealing the swordsman who was caught by her shadow.

"Shadow Possession Technique success," She said almost smugly when she felt the Killing Intent become replaced with surprise. She was not idealistic enough to think that her jutsu would be able to hold Zabuza in place for long. She had thirty seconds max for Kakashi to get his team in order before he would have to save her from getting her head cut off by Zabuza. Might as well get the giant sword as far as possible from him.

Furrowing her brow in concentration, she forced the mist ninja to toss it to the other side of the large clearing, well she was not aiming for the other side, but Zabuza was quite strong apparently. Now he would have to get pass Kakashi to reunite with his weapon. Sure Zabuza Momochi would be able to fight without his famed blade but surely not at full capacity right? Yoshiko knew she was simply able to buy time for Kakashi to launch his attack; Zabuza was, at least, an A-rank ninja, there was no way she was going to hope to be able to defeat him. Disarm him, yes, but she needed him to not be focussed on her. In a way, she needed a strong bait and Kakashi happened to be the bait she needed. One might wonder why she didn't take the opportunity to kill Zabuza with his own sword, she would only say that trying to move Zabuza's body was difficult, tossing the sword consisted of one movement with all that resistance that almost made her lose control of her jutsu. Stabbing himself required three movements: Firstly, Zabuza had to grab the sword. Secondly, he had to lift the sword. Thirdly, he had to push the sword into himself. Zabuza would fight tooth and nail against her if she tried that and Yoshiko wasn't sure she would be able to hold out. Her father might but he was a powerful Jonin while she was only a Genin with five years worth of experience with the Shadow Possession technique.

True to her calculations, her shadow retreated back to herself once she fell to her knees gasping at the amount of chakra the jutsu had siphoned off her rather limited reserves. Kakashi jumped into the fray, now engaging Zabuza in a Taijutsu fight while the rest of Team Seven gathered around Tazuna in a protective circle. She could bid her time for Kakashi to wear out Zabuza before she poisons him.

Grabbing three of her poisons: the paralysis poison, the sleep poison, and the laxative poison, she quickly dipped her senbon with them. They would last for at least a month without an antidote, that she was sure of. The main ingredient of the antidote can only be found in Konoha's forests. (More accurately the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi Forest.) Hopefully, she could nick Zabuza with one of the poisons. They were not fatal enough to kill but it was enough to bring enough hassle to prevent the man from coming back for Round 2 if he should survive Kakashi. Having a bad case of excessive bowel movement was not something that could be taken lightly.

~Page Break~

"So we've got a Nara brat with us. Lazy and cowardly bastards. Hard to control. Kakashi are you sure she won't flee on you?" Zabuza sneered at Kakashi while the silver haired man deflected another one of his blows with a kunai.

Kakashi could see the young Nara child visibly stiffen at that accusation. He had restored the faith in his own team but had forgotten about the young addition in the form of a Nara girl who seemed content on being in the background while his team bickered back and forth each other on the way to the Wave Country.

"Yoshiko, I have faith in your abilities and loyalty to my team and I will protect you with my life," Kakashi said evenly to the child. Nara Yoshiko, being one of the few ninjas with a brain who know their limits very well would have wanted to do the logical thing. Kakashi knew the logical thing to do when outclassed in abilities was to flee and he would not blame Yoshiko if she chose that option. Being conned into a mission that was far beyond their own abilities meant that the Konoha Shinobi could choose to abandon it with the Shinobi Code of Conduct designed by the Second Hokage to prevent unnecessary deaths in young and inexperienced ninjas.

Kakashi knew he was being selfish by wording his assurance to the young medic that would bind her to his team during this mission. Other than Naruto, no one in this team could heal themselves. He required a medic to support the mission and help heal the injured.

Kakashi shifted his body so as to ensure that he stood in front of the young medic. Knowing Zabuza, he would take out Yoshiko first to prevent her from healing anyone else in the team. Most assassination teams aim for the healers first, Kakashi knew that from experience where he would kill enemy medical ninjas quickly with his signature technique. Zabuza would know that Yoshiko was the medic by her not-so-subtle medical bag she carried around her obi.

"Sharingan no Kakashi, I would advise you to concentrate on your fight against me!" Zabuza's water clone swung his heavy sword towards Kakashi, barely giving the man enough time to dodge and pull Yoshiko out of the way when the real Zabuza reached out to stab her when she evaded the clones' initial attacks.

They landed onto a puddle of water. Water? The water felt denser than normal. It was impossible to move in it. Yoshiko wiggled against his weight crushing on top of her, her eyes showed wide panic like she knew this technique from one of her mother's jutsu scrolls. Could it be...

"Water prison jutsu." Zabuza appeared before them, forming the much-dreaded hand signs and encasing both Yoshiko and himself in the water prison. Kakashi knew that they were screwed from the moment both he and Yoshiko were caught. Zabuza killed two birds with one stone: he took out the strongest in the team and he took the healer who could heal the wounds of his Genin team out of commission. The water prison was as strong as steel, Kakashi could see his reluctant companion searching for a shadow in the water prison to no avail. The heavy water had become the steel-like walls keeping them trapped, hence, Kakashi shifted himself away from the little girl to avoid accidentally breaking her bones with his weight.

"Run and get out of here! You don't stand a chance against him once Yoshiko and I are captured!" Kakashi yelled out from inside the water prison, praying fervently that his stubborn team would listen to him for once.

Unfortunately, the two boys of his team refused to listen to logic and insisted on fighting. Sakura being the only one left on the team with a brain, moved Tazuna out of Zabuza's reach, never leaving his side for one second. Smart girl. Kakashi could see a potential Chunin team leader in her; cool headed and not getting lost in the heat of a battle, she would ensure her squad mates' survival, only if Kakashi could get her to lose the infatuation with the Uchiha in the team.

~Page Break~

Yoshiko was frightened to be in the water prison. It was almost like she was trapped in a ticking time bomb. The water that was previously up to her knees were currently up to her neck. She didn't like to feel like she was drowning or trapped. It felt too much like her final months as Jean, trapped and helpless in the death hospital room with her machines for company. An oxygen mask was what she needed to even breathe. Control, she needed control. Desperately, she tried to create the Air Bubble Technique that was taught to Academy students. When she formed an air bubble the size of a goldfish bowl, she breathed in the fresh air made out of her chakra and felt a lot better. At least, she could breathe by herself. Still quivering slightly, she looked around for a distraction to take her mind off that memory.

Glancing at the water around Kakashi, she noticed that it was a horrifying shade of red. He got it when he shielded her from Zabuza's attack. Guilt quickly bubbled up in her, replacing the terror at being trapped and helpless. He was bleeding out very quickly, a burst blood vessel for the blood to gush out like a broken pipe. Hands glowing green, she motioned to Kakashi on showing her his wound. He obliged quickly, knowing that with his arm half torn out and the rate he was bleeding at, he would be light-headed from blood loss in a few minutes.

Yoshiko promptly started to heal the Jonin's wound. Taking another look at the wound, she could see why the blood was gushing out that quickly. Not only were the blood vessels completely severed, there was a piece of metal shard stuck in his arm. To continue the healing process meant that she had to pull it out. When she reached around for her syringe of anesthetic, his hand around her wrist stopped her.

No anesthetic? That would mean he will feel her pulling through his muscles to get the shard out of him. The shard would not give him a clean cut when she was done and she would have to heal him using Mystical Palm. Still she went through with it.

Concentrating her chakra to her fingertips, she formed a thin thread of chakra. Once she attached it to the shard of metal, she pulled it out, ripping apart his muscle tissue and a few more capillaries. Kakashi didn't even flinch when she did that. Now the worst part was over. She simply had to close up his wounds and perhaps give him a blood replenishing pill and he would be good to go.

Healing Kakashi's wounds were a piece of cake for Yoshiko, but she still place her 100% to the task as she knows that her patient wanted her to be done as quickly as possible. (She could heal an injury but if she did not concentrate, she might screw up and then she had to redo the whole thing.) Time was of the essence here hence, she could not afford to redo anything. Placing another steady steam of chakra, she managed to heal the damaged tissues and close the wound in a record time of one minute. Grabbing a pill, she tossed it at him. 'Blood replenishment', she signed to him.

Contrary to popular belief that the Blood Replenishment Pill would recover ones' blood to full capacity upon consumption; the pill actually induced the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow causing blood cells production to twice its regular speed till the regular red blood cell count was reached. This would then send a form of a negative feedback to stop blood cell production. The process itself would often take a few hours to be fully completed. Hence, most ninjas often mistook that for immediate recovery.

Well, she was not going to complain. The pill did its magic. Kakashi who was ash pale just moments ago had reverted back to his regular porcelain skin tone. It was quite difficult to see through the water prison and the newly made mist, hence, Yoshiko had no choice but to sense out her teammates' locations. Kakashi definitely had the senses of a dog with him being able to smell and see in the thick mist and the water prison obstructing their vision. Strangely knowing that Kakashi was with her and she was not alone made her slightly relieved.

Suddenly she sensed Naruto being flung over by Sasuke and him spinning like a shuriken before leaping at Zabuza. Something made Zabuza release the water prison, allowing both her and Kakashi to quickly flee the Swordsman. Naruto grabbed her and placed her next to Sakura.

"Yoshiko, you alright? Hey, answer me!" Naruto barked at the currently stunned brunette who stared back at him blankly. Naruto sensing that she must be in shock quickly shook her a few times before giving her a comforting pat on her shoulder. Being trapped in a small area with the weird Kakashi-sensei without getting used to him first must have been scary for his brunette friend.

According to Shikamaru, Yoshiko was scared of small enclosed corners where she could not get out of easily. Naruto had witnessed that fear first-hand when she had cried out for her father when she had accidentally locked herself up in the large wardrobe while playing hide-and-seek. Kiba had quickly found her with the help of Akamaru while Shikamaru had gone to get his dad. Naruto hadn't forgotten the pale and shaking six-year-old Yoshiko who struggled to get a hold of herself. Yoshiko never played with them after that incident, often preferring to help prepare snacks for the boys with her mother.

"I'm fine Naruto. Thank you." She said once she regained her bearings. She was less pale now, Naruto noted. In each of her hands, she held on three needles. Strangely the Killing Intent from Kakashi comforted her, it gave her the knowledge that he was going to go all out to protect them and that the four of them were not helpless little bunnies that would soon be slaughtered by Zabuza.

"Naruto, do not touch it. They contain poison. Unless you wish to suffer for an entire month that is." Yoshiko said calmly. The two Jonins were currently engaged in an intense fight with various showy ninjutsu that Yoshiko could only hope to muster in her dreams. Two giant water dragons the height of a giant Hashirama tree and the width of the thickest pillar in the Hokage's building attacked each other, destroying each other and creating a large tidal wave as a result. They were on a whole new level, moving too fast for an average Genin, no, Chunin to even keep up! Still, Yoshiko observed the duo carefully, slowly gathering her chakra to prepare herself to catch Zabuza at an opportune moment and releasing him once he became poisoned. With the rate the fight was going, she had to catch Zabuza when he was a short distance from Kakashi. Her poisoning had to be subtle without anyone noticing. It had to be introduced quickly, mixed into Zabuza's blood before she removed the needles via the threads she had looped around her wrist. The thread could act as a medium to transport the needles back to herself.

She could sense another chakra presence waiting somewhere in the trees. Unfortunately, he or she was not in her shadow's range. Her shadow had a limited range dependent on the shadows already available on the ground. That must be Zabuza's ally. It made no sense for a Hunter-ninja to wait in the sidelines for that long. Hunter-ninjas of the Mist would often step into a fight and kill their prey themselves rather than allow a foreign ninja defeat their prey as a ninja's body was a rich treasure chest of information on the village and its techniques. The foreign ninja might learn all those secrets by defeating their ninja.

Another point of view would be that the Hunter-ninja was waiting for Kakashi and Zabuza to weaken themselves before he or she stepped into the fight. That enabled the Hunter-ninja to get both Zabuza and Kakashi of the Sharingan. Kakashi was on the bounty list of many nations with a worth of millions of ryo. This meant that she had to protect Kakashi and step in before he completely collapsed. She had to make sure that he did not collapse from Chaka exhaustion and that he can be easily revived. The question right at that point was how.

Poison him. Her mind immediately said back to her. A light dose of sleep poison would be ideal and she would always have the antidote at hand lest the Hunter-ninja tried attacking them. Currently, the two Jonin ninjas were engaged in a fight with primarily Taijutsu. Zabuza was ranting about how Kakashi was merely copying him like a monkey. Perfect opportunity. Her aim was trained to be perfect with her senbon with the hours spent in perfecting her aim with them.

She threw the six containing three types of poison onto Zabuza before concentrating her chakra to hold him in place for two seconds to allow the poison to sink in. (She wouldn't have to do that if she wasn't trying to leave evidence of her doing) They connected with his arms, the Shadow Possession Technique holding him in place via the threads. (Ahem, credits to Shikamaru on the strategy, he taught her that once when they were sparring with each other. Well he gave the inspiration for it.)

"Shadow Possession Technique success," She muttered to herself softly. Once that was said, she released Zabuza immediately. Kakashi seemed to have caught on her ploy and helped her hold the man in place to not make it appear suspicious. She concluded it must have been the Sharingan on Kakashi that saw her chakra flowing in the threads. After that, Kakashi knocked Zabuza out with a particularly vicious punch on his head and a few stabs with his kunai knife.

What Kakashi was not prepared for was the familiar hold of the Shadow Possession on himself when he was about to go for the kill. A single needle hit him on the arm before it was pulled back by the owner's thread. He wouldn't have seen those needles of hers if not for the Sharingan ability to see chakra due to the thick mist hindering their vision and the fact that the needles were a lot smaller than regular senbon. They almost looked like surgical needles used in syringes. What was the little Nara thinking?

He could feel himself become slightly light-headed, like how Chakra Exhaustion for him was like. Zabuza was no doubt poisoned by the young medic but why would she poison him as well?

'Hunter ninja, less than ten meters away', she tapped at him when she caught him with her sleeves hiding both their hands. Now that Kakashi was not concentrating on the fight, he could distinctively sense the Hunter ninja. 'We need you to be able to fight if the Hunter Ninja wants to kill you. Conserve your chakra.' She tapped into his palm before he felt the Chakra Transfer Technique being performed. It was slow, like filling up a bathtub with a teaspoon, but it was slowly working.

Without Yoshiko's chakra transfer, Kakashi knew that he could only pull off another A-rank jutsu before he collapsed from Chakra Exhaustion. Using the Sharingan repeatedly had its consequences. Currently, he was at a quarter capacity of his reserves with the little girl's chakra flowing into him. Most medics would perform the Chakra Transfer Technique with at least four more members to make it effectively, but Kakashi knew he had only one medic and a young one without high chakra reserves. Beggars can't be choosers. He made sure to not take too much out of her. He took just enough for him to be able to fight off another ninja before he shrugged off the chakra being fed to him.

Sure enough, he felt a lot better. But the poison was still acting on him. Discreetly, Yoshiko passed him the antidote. Quickly he finished the whole vial of colorless liquid that reminded him a lot of overly sugar water. The antidote took time to work, he concluded when the light-headed feeling faded away slowly. When he moved in the kill again, the Hunter Ninja chose to make his presence known via a senbon needle being embedded into Zabuza's neck. Meanwhile, Yoshiko was busy tending to the injuries sustained by Sasuke. He checked Zabuza's pulse: nothing. He was dead.

"Thank you. I have been tracking this man for a long time." The Hunter Ninja carried Zabuza's still body before disappearing with a whirl of mist. Kakashi could see signs of Chakra Exhaustion in his little medic where she leaned onto Sasuke for support. The raven haired boy strangely didn't push her away except calling her 'dead-weight' jokingly. That joke did not go unnoticed.

Very quickly, the group headed off towards Tazuna's house. A nagging feeling was bugging him, something about that Hunter Ninja didn't sit right with him. His instincts told him something was very wrong about the situation but he was unsure what. Perhaps talking to mini-Shikaku or Sakura might give him some more information or ideas. Naras were supposed to be very smart and excellent at deduction. Sakura was also the smartest Kunoichi he had seen in her class. Three brains working together were better than one anyway.

~Page Break~

Yoshiko felt extremely dizzy after healing Sasuke. Currently, she was using the said boy as a clutch. How embarrassing. Back in Academy, she would be the one supporting his weight when they were doing their vertical see-saw on the tree during lunchtime. Currently, he was the one supporting her weight.

"Heh. Whose the dead weight now?" He teased her with a knowing smirk on his face.

"Hn." Great, now their roles were reversed. He was the one poking fun at her! That stupid bastard was enjoying it way too much with that smirk on his face.

"By the way, did you know that you gained a lot of weight?" Sasuke teased her again.

"Please, I'm so much lighter than you!" She hissed back at him, quickly taking offense at the jab towards her weight.

Yoshiko could distinctly hear Kakashi laughing at the two of them. Well, more like laughing at her. When she tried to support herself, note the tried, she had fallen down and landed unceremoniously on her bottom (creating a small crater on the dirt ground), further proving the Uchiha's point.

"Oi Uchiha! If you are as light as you say, you should be as fast too. Let's race to Tazuna's! If you win, I'm letting you call me Dead-weight for this whole mission. If I win, I'm going to call you Duck's Ass!" With that, she practically fell off in her bid to gain a head start. She ate a food pill for better measure. It was not supposed to be a fair race anyway, it was a free for all race.

"That's cheating!" Sasuke shouted back at the brunette girl to hear only the wind. She's fast! Sasuke started to run too. She always won all the races they had when they were younger but in terms of stamina and long runs, he would do much better than her.

Naruto too wanted to join in. Hence, he took off in the direction where Yoshiko had ran from when Sasuke started running. "Hey Dead-last, you're going to come in last!" The raven haired boy yelled at the blonde while they ran. Clearly Sasuke had an advantage due to longer hours spent training up his strength, stamina, and speed.

Sasuke could see the brunette in front of him. True enough she was making use of the ninja trick of leaping on tree branches to up her speed. "Sasuke?" She looked slightly surprised, looking down from her tree.

"Hn. I did speed training over the years as well, dead weight." He sounded extremely smug. Of course, he had trained, perhaps the Most-Trained-Ninja-of-the-Year Award should go to him.

Yoshiko simply upped her speed with a burst of chakra into her legs before waving at him goodbye and laughing all the way. She wasn't using a lot of chakra?! Sasuke thought in alarm. Sasuke added more chakra to his leg muscles and ran forward. Naruto was already at the same pace as him. He could not lose to Dead-last!

Yoshiko stopped at the front o the house and soon enough the two boys arrived both as red as each other and panting. She watched amused as the boys argued who was first. She was totally forgotten by the two boys. That was for the best. She had better things to do than to be the babysitter for them or to become entangled in their stupid rivalry.

She had narrowly escaped one of Gai's contests with Kakashi; Gai had wanted her to be the judge and see which one of them could finish the most number of mochi in a minute. She was unlucky enough to be in the house when Gai and Kakashi came over with her mother's weekly shopping. Her mother had thought it was a good idea to pick up some more fresh fish at the opposite side of the market. Yoshiko shuddered slightly when the duo had all but cleaned up her one week supply of mochi. Personally, she had two sticks of mochi per day. That was a lot considering the fact that she had to prepare mochi for Kotetsu and Izumo as well. (Both men ate, at least, five sticks of mochi each daily. She kind of sympathized with their boring job as gate guards. Hence, she made the effort to pass them a whole box of mochi to pass the week with.)

Yoshiko could see the budding of a Gai-Kakashi rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke, even if the two flat out refused to admit it. They were like an old married couple at times. Sorry Sakura, she thought with sympathy to the pink haired girl, Sasuke might be more interested in Naruto than her.

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Do continue giving reviews and support to this fanfic!

For those that could see the reason why Shikaku had opposed to Yoshiko working in T&I, give yourselves a chocolate chip cookie! :)

Well about Yoshiko's weight... I would say Kakashi found her extremely light is due to the fact of him being an adult. She's actually a bit lighter than pre-Shippuden Sasuke. This is quite reasonable as she doesn't do dieting (too lazy) and she likes to eat sweet things mochi if you guys haven't noticed. It's kind of fattening even with all that training she does as a ninja. Nope, she won't be like Chouji, but she will have quite a bit more meat as compared to Ino and Sakura, maybe around Tenten's size.


	9. Chapter 9

The Two Fawns:

Chapter 9: Food Poisoning and Training with Hatake Kakashi

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The Effects of Yoshiko's presence will soon be felt starting in this chapter. Hope you guys like it. :) hmmm... I too feel that besides Sakura's excessive fangirl antics over Sasuke, she is actually a pretty decent Kumoichi herself. I hope that my portrayal of Sakura in the story would be accurate. She had to have some skills to be the top kunoichi of the year right?

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Kakashi Hatake felt a lot better after reaching their destination. The bridge would be ready in a few weeks or month's time depending on the number of hours the builders put into working on the bridge. Oh meanwhile he would have some training time to spare for those three little Genins.

The area around the house was also secured, well as secured as it could get with a Genin's surveillance level. With four hour rotation shifts with two Genin on guard duty every night, Kakashi felt that Sakura did a good job in making use of her limited resources. Of course, the pinkette followed the rules thoroughly; first making sure that she had his permission to start the guarding duty and second to match people up via their abilities. Kakashi felt that the only female in his team might be the only one with an ounce of leadership abilities. 'Seems like Sakura will be a Chunin before those two idiots then, Yoshiko too perhaps, given her talent at deduction.' Kakashi mused to himself as he looked at the current tables the pinkette had drawn up along with the makeshift map that Yoshiko had been busy with. Sakura was currently discussing the timings of the shifts with the medical ninja.

At least the two girls were getting along. Kakashi though wistfully at the two boys who were currently bickering over which side of the futon they would be sleeping on. 'It appears to me that girls are more mature as compared to their male counterparts.' Kakashi thought, before deciding that the twelve year him was a lot more mature than those four. Then again, they were not forced to grow up quickly.

Sakura was extremely professional in this case; she matched up Naruto and Sasuke, despite her wishes to be alone with the raven haired boy. Her reasoning behind it had been simple: Yoshiko and her would have screamed at Naruto with their clashing personalities. Yoshiko would definitely be reading her book and Naruto, being the hyperactive ninja would somehow rile the short-tempered brunette up, hence creating a lot of noise rather than being on guard duty. She might also run into the same predicament with Naruto as she, too had a short fuse towards Naruto's antics. Sasuke, on the other hand, would be perfect as Naruto's partner. With their childish rivalry, the two boys would be having a competition to see who could be more silent than the other.

~Page Break~

Yoshiko was extremely impressed by Sakura when she had single-handedly made up the shifts rooster for an entire within fifteen minutes. Yoshiko had found Sakura quite intelligent and fun to be around when she was not around Sasuke or fangirling over the Uchiha. Sakura had requested for her to assist her in planning out the places for the traps to better safe-guard the house. Sakura had been quite creative with the making of traps, surprising for a well-known goody-two shoes back in the Academy.

"My poisons would be good for knocking out any intruders." She suggested, twirling a pencil in her fingers while looking at all the red Xs around the houses where the traps were supposed to be.

"Hmm... I think we will need some poisons like that poison pollen of yours." Sakura said, now writing a short note about a balloon trap. Besides the balloon trap, there were a few others like the kunai trap, poison smoke trap and the quicklime trap. Sakura had little trouble remembering designs from the various books she had read up to ace her examinations.

Iruka-sensei said that her answers for the written exams were well detailed, the pinkette had mentioned in passing when she handed Yoshiko her book of notes from the Academy. Flipping through the horrendously thick textbook; Yoshiko was soon seeing Sakura in a different light.

They were busy right up till dinner time when Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter called the girls down for dinner. The boys, for the lack of a better description, stink like a carton of rotten eggs. And they were glaring daggers at each other. For once, Sakura had chose to sit at the opposite end of the table from Sasuke and Naruto who were forced to sit together. Kakashi was sitting in his own corner and reading his little orange book.

"Geez, what were they doing?" Sakura asked Yoshiko who barely managed to finish her food without feeling the urge to vomit.

"It smelt like a failed attempt at fishing to me." Yoshiko answered back. The stench was quite familiar actually, with her being slapped in the face by fishes many times meant she smelt exactly like them during her trainings in the hospital. When Sakura gave her a slight questioning look, she shot the other girl back with a no-questions look.

However what she had said apparently managed to stir up some strong feelings in Naruto. "I caught more fish that teme over here ttaebayo!" He shouted with his chopsticks pointing up high in the air.

"I caught more than you did, dead last." Sasuke snapped back. The glaring contest was back again. Suddenly, utter realization dawned upon Yoshiko. The fishes that were served for dinner had knife wounds on their abdomen. Now her appetite was really gone.

"Hey did you guys use clean Kunai knives?" She asked, Shinobi with weaker immune systems were often hospitalized due to consumption of unsanitary food. Probably due to them not changing the kunai they used to fight and the kunai meant for skinning their animals. The fact that the kunai may contain impurities or rust from the blood of opponents with less than stellar cleaning standards. (Kunais are quite cheap these days. And most Shinobi purchase new equipment once every three months, understandable due to the fact that many were too exhausted after missions to throughly clean their equipment. Konoha had warehouses full of them with the over-ordering by the Third Hokage. Ninja tools deliveries were made almost every week to stock up further on equipment.) Swords and specialized weapons, however were a different story. There were oils and special washes sold at weaponry shops dotted across Konoha to cater to the needs of these Shinobi.

"Ehh... Yoshiko-chan, your kunai knives are always clean right? Cause you're a medic and all... Ttaebayo..." Naruto scratched the back of his head as an uncomfortable silence ensured. Kakashi simply sighed.

"Naruto, you idiot! I'm both a medic and a poison specialist! How in the world would my kunai not contain any poison! Congratulations, you guys had the honor of consuming my laxative poison, that would keep you all in the bathroom for the whole night." She hissed at him like a viper. The silver lining in the clouds was the fact that those two chose her Kunai where the concentration of poison was considerably lower as compared to the senbon and needles, her main weapon choices.

Everyone at the dining table paled at once and ceased eating immediately. Tazuna turned even more green if that was possible, probably recalling Kakashi's words about Yoshiko's particular talents at poisoning and creating poisons. Kakashi smirked under his mask, he had detected the poison and had not consumed a bite of that food at all. Unfortunately, he couldn't warn Tazuna and his family about the mild poison contained in their dinner in favor of teaching his two little brats a lesson on not touching another ninja's equipment without permission. Sakura was simply an unfortunate victim caught in the circumstances unknowingly.

"However, lucky for you all, I'm a responsible poison user who carries her antidote with herself all the time. Next time,do not touch my equipment without asking me." Yoshiko got up from the dining table and to the room for the antidote. She herself had consume her portion of the antidote when she found that glass of antidote before making her way into the kitchen. Might as well teach those two buffoons a lesson, she thought with a wicked grin.

Grabbing all the glasses, she filled all but two glasses with one drop of the antidote mixed into the water. Kakashi's portion was excluded as well. Then she proceeded to hand all the glasses out one by one, giving the excuse of measuring out the antidote portion via the different masses of the recipients to ensure its effectiveness. She didn't escape Kakashi's knowing gaze and rather amused expression. Nothing escaped that man's eye anyways. Sakura seemed to know that something was up but not sure what was up.

That night, there were curses and loud insults from the bathroom that night. Sleeping in her bed and looking up at the sky from the window, she wondered what was her twin up to that cloudy night with very little stars and the moon being hardly visible.

~Page Break~

 _In the Nara Clan Compound..._

Shikamaru sneezed loudly while gazing at the clouds via the twins' shared bedroom. The clouds were nice and fluffy that night, slowly drifting from the gentle breeze that was blowing.

Shikamaru felt that the room was remarkably empty without a certain noisy, troublesome female there. Sure, he did not enjoy her screeching into his ear and her over energetic ways, from his point of view at least. But that troublesome female had been sleeping in his room since they were both little babies. Sleeping without her around was a little unsettling to say the least. Plus, there was no Yoshiko to keep mother from nagging at him and fussing at him like an old hen during dinner to work harder. The old man's too whipped to say anything. But troublesome girl often get mom's attention for coming back with hair looking like a mowed lawn. Their mother would then shift her attention to the other female of the family.

Laying lazily on the bed, Shikamaru thought about how troublesome it was to start analyzing Yoshiko's and his mother's behavior. Ahh... Women are a drag and that's the truth, he concluded before promptly falling asleep after his cloud gazing.

~Page Break~

"Good morning!" Yoshiko and Sakura announced brightly at Kakashi when they met at the designated meeting place aka Sensei's makeshift room, the largest guest room. Sasuke and Naruto both look quite haggard, both with dark circles under their eyes.

"Yoshiko, that was so mean of you!" Naruto shouted, pointing his finger accusingly at her. Sasuke too shot her one of his famous death glares.

"Well... It was all necessary in the name of teaching you guys a lesson. Kakashi-san knew all about it." Yoshiko replied. That was when all hell broke loose.

"Kakashi-sensei!" The three shouted with enough volume for the man's gravity defying hair to flatten slightly. Kakashi simply gave a slight smile before waving them away.

"Sasuke-kun are you alright? Do you need-" Sakura started to ask the raven haired boy only to be ignored with a "hn" by the object of her affections.

Naruto started ranting at Yoshiko about how badly his stomach had hurt throughout the whole night while the brunette simply continued reading her book.

"If you aren't aware, Zabuza is pretty much alive and might come back for us once he recovers." Again Kakashi had neglected telling the three that Yoshiko had poisoned the latter with the very same poison that had affected them last night. Yoshiko was quite sure no one except her knew the antidote when she wrote all her notes for poison making in English, a code that only Raido-sensei and Genma-sensei were able to decode. Teaching three adults English had been relatively fun as well as effective. They thought that she had a talent for coding, little did they know that it was simply a language that Jean used to speak every day. They had been so amazed by the fact that the code had its own grammar structure and its own sentence structure that was vastly different from their own. She was planning to show her father the code once the mission was over.

"What?" Came the four collective gasps. Sighing, Kakashi decided to explain the front part before leaving the medic to explain the rest.

"A Hunter-ninja after killing their prey would quickly destroy the bodies to prevent any secrets of the village from getting out. That Hunter-ninja had opted to take the whole body with him. That was not required and impractical with the fact that Zabuza was clearly a lot heavier than him. Normally, the head itself would suffice. Plus, the fact that he attacked Zabuza's neck with a senbon. Why the neck? And why did he use the senbon that can be used in medical treatment or acupuncture?" Kakashi asked the group rhetorically. The sudden realization on Yoshiko's face was the cue that she would take over the explanation.

"That would only place Zabuza on a near-death paralysis that would leave him in a state of 'fake' death where the heart's rate is slowed to the point of a hibernating animal. This way chakra would be conserved. Most medics use that technique to treat Shinobi in the battlefield that suffer from severe chakra exhaustion. But it's only done by those trained in Acupuncture for its near the jugular vein and artery. Any error would lead to immediate death." Yoshiko explained before looking at Kakashi for some sort of answers.

"Hunter-ninjas are well versed in Human Anatomy. It's no surprise that he knew that." Kakashi added in. Once the fact on their enemy being alive sank in, all four looked like deers being caught in the route of a wagon.

"However, with Yoshiko managing to poison Zabuza, he would take at least a month for his system to finish combating the poison. By that time, the bridge should be completed, however, Tazuna might be in the danger of him attacking again." At that the four looked slightly relieved before Naruto loudly announced that they should train to fight Zabuza.

"Naruto you idiot, what can we do with only a months' time." Sakura practically whined at their sober predicament.

"Well, I guess I can teach you lot a thing or two to make you better equipped at dealing with Zabuza." Team Seven got up and followed Kakashi, while Yoshiko laid back at the window to look at the clouds. Ha! She didn't have to train, she thought gleefully to herself.

Unfortunately, that bubble was burst when Kakashi gave her a close eyed smile, "oh and Yoshiko, you are coming with us." How troublesome, Yoshiko grumbled to herself while she dragged herself out to the forest at the back of Tazuna's house.

~Page Break~

"Climb a tree?!" A hyperactive ninja exclaimed loudly clearly in disbelief.

"Naruto's right for once. How does climbing a tree help in fighting Zabuza?" Sasuke questioned, clearly unimpressed with his sensei. Even Sakura looked doubtful towards the silver haired man, thinking that he was finally off his knocker.

"Did I say to use your hands? I meant to climb the tree without using your hands. Watch carefully." Kakashi walked up the tree branch like he was walking on flat ground. He ignored the looks from awe from his cute little Genin. Yoshiko, however, looked extremely bored. Kakashi threw three kunai at the feet of his students. "Mark the spot that you've reached after climbing the tree."

Naruto counted the number of kunai before scratching his head in confusion. "But sensei, there's only three kunai. What will Yoshiko do?" He questioned the currently reading medic ninja who was perched up on a tree branch and casually swinging her legs. She looked up at the mention of her name but returned back to her book shortly after that.

"She will be having her own brand of training from me." Kakashi gave his signature closed-eye smile again. Suddenly, Yoshiko felt as if she should flee the scene as soon as possible. "But we will be watching you all for a while." Kakashi flipped his little orange book open again and continued reading.

Naruto promptly returned to the tree-climbing exercise. The two boys charged at the trees like two bulls and ran up the tree before marking the spot that they could reach. Sasuke fell off gracefully after destroying the bark of his tree while Naruto went tumbling down. The whole cycle went on four or five times.

"Hey this is fun!" Sakura giggled from the top of her brunch. She was perched on the highest branch like Yoshiko who looked up to see the pink-haired girl at the same level as herself.

"Hmm... It seems like the only female of team seven is good at chakra control. Guess Sakura is closer at becoming Hokage than anyone else here and it seems like the Uchiha is not as impressive as he seem." Kakashi found it highly amusing when the two boys went as stiff as boards before a renewed fighting spirit gleamed in their eyes. Sakura relished the compliment before admonishing Kakashi for insulting Sasuke. Time to deal with his lazy medic.

Kakashi found that making a Nara do something they did not like was akin getting a cat to swim. He couldn't bait her like the other three Genins of his with treats and compliments. Yoshiko didn't behave like a puppy who seek approval from him. He had to trick her somehow into working. Unlike Genma and Raido that have a hold over the girl with the capacity of being her teachers, or Hikari who was her superior in training; Kakashi was only her team leader, and she was not his student. Yoshiko reminded Kakashi of a nocturnal tabby cat with a fluffy tail, content to laze around for the whole day on its comfortable spot. Fortunately he could be very persuasive, especially towards little girls with little egos.

"Hmm... Seems like you are stuck with me. Do you want to test your abilities against mine?" Kakashi asked her despite knowing her answer.

"Nah, I'm just planning to read." She quickly replied, shifting her body to a slightly more relaxed position.

"Really? Not even a battle of wits? I often wondered if the Nara are as intelligent as their reputation made them to be. After all, they are a lazy bunch. Plus you're Shikaku's kid." The carrot and the stick. He had ensnared her when he brought up her clan when she stiffened in posture. Ahh... The clan pride in her. Kakashi knew that she was thinking of methods to make the training as painful as possible for him. Genma often spoke of her being easily provoked if her clan or father was insulted. A vague memory of a five year old little girl in a red dress verbally dismantling a couple probed at the back of Kakashi's head.

"You want a fight? You shall have one!" The little girl leapt off the bunch with the grace of a feline and took off deeper into the forest. Kakashi followed her scent easily. Her scent stopped in the clearing of a forest. There she was on top of another tree, waiting for him. He had to give her credit, Genma had trained her well in terms of speed.

"Conditions?" Yoshiko asked, looking from her spot at the Jonin. Kakashi could smell wariness leaking from the female in front of him. She knew that he was dangerous and was trying to keep a distance from him. It was totally Raido's style to carefully observe an opponent before taking them on. Now that he was the one chasing her, she felt hunted and threatened by him but she was unwilling to completely submit to her instincts of danger towards him. How cute. The kitten had a brain and claws after all. Currently, he waiting for the other female of the team to join them.

"Kakashi-sensei, I'm here as you asked." Sakura soon joined the other girl on the same tree. Females flock together hmm... Kakashi could almost see the logic behind it, of the two Yoshiko looked like the least threatening one of them both. Sakura simply picked the lesser devil.

"Okay we're all here. Let's begin. You will both hunt me down with all the methods you have. You will have to immobilize me for two minutes. However, the catch is that you cannot allow me to catch you first." Hunt or be hunted, that was the basis of their training. He didn't bother summoning his pack, they were not required against two little Genin.

"But how long do we have Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked while Yoshiko was staring a hole into him. One was taking note of the details, the other one was coming up a host of strategies to fight him and at the same time evade him.

"Three hours." He simply said before disappearing into the forest in a flurry of leaves. He forgot to add that he had suppressed his chakra for he wanted to train up their tracking skills.

~Page Break~

 _Meanwhile in some place in the Wave Country_

"Curse you, Hatake Kakashi!" Zabuza shouted furiously after returning from his seventh trip to the toilet. He was feeling both light-headed and excessive stiffness in his limbs. Zabuza knew he was poisoned, but how? It must be that damned Hatake! Stupid copy-cat! He was only imitating him like a monkey! He didn't believe that those four brats with him could poison him like that.

The two boys only got the better of him due to him underestimating him, a mistake that he would not make twice. Pink-haired girl was busy defending the old man, she wouldn't even budge from her spot. Nara only had her lousy Shadow Technique and medical ninjutsu. Just then Haku entered the room with some more herbs that he had gathered.

"Haku, have you found an antidote to that poison?" He barked at his disciple who shook his head sadly. Apparently, the poison that was currently wrecking havoc on his body would eventually be metabolized by his body in a month's time. The main ingredient required to neutralize the poison was the Golden Flower of Konoha that Konoha would never sell or export. Haku was currently looking for an alternative for that herb, but his attempts had proved futile.

That was surprising for Zabuza for the Copy-cat ninja was well known to be extremely tricky but poison was not his area of speciality. He had come into contact with the Sand puppetry department's infamous scorpion and metallic poisons before and he had survived them all. It was simply baffling that Kakashi would suddenly had such skill for poisons. Zabuza would not believe it and he refused to wait around for his chakra burn off the poison. Gato, that little twit was annoying to be around and Zabuza wanted to complete the job in order to get his payment quickly.

* * *

Hahaha poor Zabuza. Actually the reason why Haku couldn't neutralize the poison was due to the error in belief that Zabuza was afflicted with only one poison when in actual fact, Yoshiko had used three poisons on him.


	10. Chapter 10

The Two Fawns:  
Chapter 10: Scary Girls and A Not-so-Conventional Ninja Showdown

* * *

Sakura and Yoshiko practically crawled back to Tazuna's house after that training session with Kakashi. It was exhausting: torn muscles, chakra almost depleted, Sakura's hair looked like a bird's nest literally with twigs and leaves stuck in it, Yoshiko's face was smeared with mud and sweat making her look she went skipping in the mud puddles. The two kunoichi's clothes were ripped and they knew with a doubt they both looked unsightly and stinky. Yoshiko was almost glad that Naruto and Sasuke were not back yet. Oh that Naruto would probably be laughing his head off when he saw her current appearance. The lazy girl who wouldn't do anything looking like she got toiled through a field, Naruto would never let her live it down.

Yoshiko loved baths and she loved hot baths even more when her muscles were sore and aching after that training exercise. They had no choice but to use some sweet smelling bath washes to get rid of that horrible smell of dog pee that was sprayed on them, most ninjas would not use any scented wash. Scented wash would cause them to have a harder time masking their scents.

"Say Sakura, do you really use dog's shampoo to wash your hair?" Yoshiko asked the other girl who was currently brushing her hair to get rid of the tangles.

"No! Of course not! Who would want to smell like a dog! Ewww... Dogs are really disgusting!" Sakura shuddered at the pug that had sputtered them with urine.

"Hmm... Sakura, would you say that Akamaru is disgusting?" Yoshiko asked thoughtfully as she smooth through yet another tangle. A knot of hair appeared at the base of the comb. That was payback from her hair for not brushing it daily. It was so troublesome to spend time combing through her hair. Yoshiko simply grabbed them all and tied them into the classic Nara-styled ponytail that required little tending to. It was less troublesome than other hairstyles. It was no wonder most of the guys in the Nara Clan always had their hair in a ponytail. However, unlike the guys, she had long hair... So there comes the tangles whenever she combed her hair and of course the mess causes the classic pineapple hair most Nara had.

Sakura jumped back slightly as if she was being hit by a bucket of cold water before replying quickly, "no, wait it's because Kakashi's dogs smell gross! Akamaru's cute and I bet Kiba keeps him clean as well! Hey stop that!" Sakura reached out to playfully punch Yoshiko. She hits hard, Yoshiko noted as she rubbed her arms painfully. The normal Sakura before Sasuke comes back and Number One Fangirl would instantly come flying back. She should enjoy it while it lasted.

"How about we pay him back tenfold for that?" Yoshiko grinned like the cat with cream while she juggled the extra bag of catnip she managed to harvest while making her concoctions.

"Men who like dogs so much wouldn't mind cats' sinking their claws into him right?" Sakura giggled hysterically. 'Just you wait Kakashi-sensei...'

~Page Break~

Meanwhile in the forest...

Kakashi sneezed while he was reading his book. Unlike most days, the copy-ninja had no mask on his face and was currently enjoying the caress of the soft breeze against his mask-less face and in the company of his pack.

Less than a minute later, Kakashi sneezed again. 'Strange, I was never the one to catch a cold.' Kakashi thought as he reached around to stroke another one of his dog while reading through the pages of the X-rated adult book.

"Kakashi, you know when you sneeze for no reason at all, it means that someone is gossiping about you." Pakkun pointed up lazily while chewing on a doggy treat like the rest of the pack for helping with the training earlier with the girls of the team.

"I wonder who..." Kakashi said knowingly. The rest of the pack knew the answer as well as their alpha. Female ninja or not, girls would still be girls. Covering them in dog's piss and mud had been quite a low blow, and Pakkun was worried that his alpha might finally get a taste of a woman's, no, women's wrath, judging from the seething anger in the female Nara and the pinkette earlier.

~Page Break~

Dinner was fun to some extent. Yoshiko was extremely amused to see Naruto and Sasuke grabbing their bowls of rice and eating it up like a manic. Surely with that kind of speed eating would lead to-

"If you guys want to eat, then don't puke it all out!" Sakura slammed her hands onto the table when the boys both collapsed from rapidly regurgitating their food on the floor next to them. They had formed a rivalry... Yoshiko was pretty sure of that and was doubly confirmed when the two boys glared at each other venomously. If there was a competition between the most troublesome of all ninjas, Yoshiko wasn't sure if Naruto or Sasuke would win first place with her mother coming a close second.

The night had passed slowly with a crybaby yelling about his woes, something that made Yoshiko want to cover her ears and return to Konoha. She had not made the deal of being forced to listen to a know-it-all ramble about how invincible Gato was. Naruto had tried to reason with the boy but to no avail. Yoshiko did not bother interfering, a brat would stay a brat. How troublesome it would have been if she had to step in on that mess. A waste of breath, yep, so the lazy Nara waited eagerly for dinner to be over to return to her beloved book collection. A few had some leather maintenance work to be done and others had to be checked for samples falling apart which she hoped none.

Naruto had the persistence and energy to sort people out, she didn't. Hmm... A game of Shoji would be fun and it would buy some time for Sakura to carry out their plan. She grabbed a board from her backpack (she didn't recall placing that in her bag, it must had been Shikamaru's doing) and made a beeline for the silver-haired Jonin.

"Kakashi-san, would you like to play a game of Shogi?" She sounded a little too eager, well not playing or watching anyone play was enough to give her cold turkey. The silver haired man raised an eyebrow before nodding.

Kakashi was wondering when the kid would ask. Knowing Shikaku, there was not a day where he would not play Shogi, surely his daughter had inherited his passion for that strange old man's game. The Jonin Commander had often joked about his two children ganging up on him with hopes of beating him one day.

A game of Shogi with a Nara huh? It would be a good experience, that Kakashi was sure but to play against a child? Kakashi knew better than to hold back, if he underestimated this little girl, it would come back and bite him hard in the ass. Her twin had effortlessly defeated Asuma several times without even the man knowing the game was lost. Sometimes the checkmate was quick when he had his twin whispering into his ear, again a testament to her impatient ways. Double the trouble means double the fun, Asuma had said quite happily. Kakashi had not met Shikamaru personally, but if his sister was acting as the Nara genius's advisor; he'd be careful.

The game was long and brutal. Yoshiko was wary of him at first, highly defensive and guarded her King fiercely against him. Kakashi hadn't been able to attack her and neither was she able to attack him. Kakashi tried lulling her into a sense of false security, it had work partially but at the cost of his chariot and several pawns. She lost her rook in the process.

Suddenly, the dynamics of the game changed. Yoshiko seemed to have finished checking his skills out, she launched a fast but still careful attack against him, almost afraid of losing more pieces. Kakashi was forced to defend himself, she was strangely aiming for all his Generals. He gave his all for the game, blocking her at every attempt she made. She didn't let her prey go easily, he could see that with the little huffs of frustration when he blocked yet another one of her attacks or she allowed herself to be led into yet another trap in her haste. Kakashi had to spend more time defending himself against the numerous attacks that rained on him like a downpour. Some he successfully evaded, others had pricked him sharply. The Nara heiress counted her victories and fought tooth and nail for the upper hand and control on the board. A persistent female, he mused.

Kakashi had not realized that they had played for three hours until Yoshiko gave a slight grin and said, "Kakashi-san that was a good game. It's checkmate for you," and promptly captured his king with a sweet smile. Kakashi was as per usual quite impressed by the skill of the Nara in terms of strategy games. Little Yoshiko has nothing on the level of Shikaku yet, but there was potential. She'd been trying to capture his King for the past hour but was deflected by him all the time, well it might had looked like it. Eventually, her tricks became more and more complex, causing Kakashi to think harder on how to counter her moves. Like in her impatience to ensnare him, she had became ruthless in the battle.

"Indeed Yoshiko, it was a good game." Kakashi got up from his place on the table while Yoshiko kept the pieces in her board. When Kakashi entered the room, he smelt something strange in all his bedding and his pack were currently snoozing on his bed. It reeked of catnip, he would never give ninja hounds for it had a calming effect on them and sometimes induces deep sleep for them which was happening to the smaller dogs in his pack. Personally, Kakashi disliked the smell of catnip.

Catnip? Kakashi knew the culprit, however, unless Yoshiko could do the Shadow Clone technique, there was no way she was in this alone. Another scent mixed into the overpoweringly sweet smell of catnip was the familiar scent of a certain pink haired girl. Girls and their need for payback perhaps? Kakashi thought in amusement and there Shikaku was saying that girls could be scary. How scary could two girls who sneaked catnip into his room be? He thought rhetorically.

~Page Break~

Three weeks passed quickly. Kakashi was glad that the two boys in his team were at least able to climb a tree with only their chakra and that the teamwork of Team Seven was improving with the time that they were forced to spend together. Tazuna's bridge was completed as well, today was simply the naming day of the bridge.

The whole month had not gone very smoothly with Gato's little mercenaries coming after the workers on the bridge at every turn. Some, clearly not ninja, had freaked out at the sight of Jutsus being used. Yoshiko's Lighting Release: Nerve Shock brought him the most amusement out of it. The mercenaries had panicked when they found that their bodies were not listening to them. The Shadow Possession that came along did not help matters. Yoshiko practically paralyzed them before using them for her target practice.

His three Genin had done the same as well. With Yoshiko taking out some members, others turn to flee and were instead pulverized by the three. They had even managed to mess around with Gato, where Yoshiko conveniently helped knock out his guards who monopolize the warehouses for basic necessities. Knowing that none of the opponents were ninja made things easier. Plus fighting those fools gave his Genin Taijutsu practice and Kakashi could simply stand at a corner and read his book.

Sasuke had Sharingan training with him in the early mornings, he indeed lived up to his title as the top Genin of his class in terms of sheer talent. Within three weeks of training, his Sharingan had matured to a two tomoe in one eye while the other had one tomoe. Kakashi knew that for the tomoe in his student's eyes to mature, he had to force Sasuke under intense training where Sasuke felt that his survival was at stake or his comrade was in danger. Hence Kakashi had made use of Naruto several times, often driving Sasuke and Naruto into the corner. Once that happens, Sasuke often tried to help Naruto get out of it by fighting to his fullest potential. Much as Sasuke liked calling Naruto a loser, Kakashi could see the beginnings of a friendship bond forming between the two.

Naruto, had to be cured of his impulsiveness in battle as well as his head-on charging tactics. Kakashi was reminded of a certain someone when he trained the boy. Definitely, the boy had not inherited any of his father's well-reputed intelligence. Rather he had inherited his mother's hot-headed personality, something that may or may not be beneficial for the young boy. Still, Kakashi could see he was a people's pleaser, wanting to impress a certain pink-haired girl hence he could work with that.

Sakura, Kakashi had not invested much of his time with her. Instead, she had found her way with Yoshiko. The duo did chakra control practice together, with Yoshiko teaching Sakura how to use basic medical ninjutsu to fight. Currently, Yoshiko was teaching Sakura how to make use of chakra concentrated in her weapons to make sharper and more dangerous weapons. They had been practicing how to get Lightning infused chakra onto their hands to make their strikes a lot more painful before a numbing sensation follows.

Kakashi had a feeling that Yoshiko was planning to create a unique form of surgery with that theory in mind. Lightning could cause shock and pain, but it could also cause the body cells to temporarily shut down or it could cause the chakra to flow to another direction with a lot less chakra, rather than the using the traditional chakra consuming method to circulate chakra. Yoshiko had low chakra reserves; causing her to be unable to take part in many operations that required a lot of chakra like treatments that required medics to utilize their chakra into the patients' body and recirculate it for hours. That information, was known to Kakashi when the girl herself asked him on ways to increase her reserves slowly.

Sakura definitely had more chakra reserves that Yoshiko hence she hadn't had to train as hard as Yoshiko when coming to using Lightning Techniques that were chakra consuming. Sakura had pushed on chakra and good chakra control to carry out the technique, Yoshiko had made use of her almost perfect chakra control to do the technique. Not a morsel of chakra was wasted in Yoshiko's case. Kakashi wondered if she could even one day be able to save her comrades lives simply by stopping their cells or forcing them into hibernation while she repairs the damage.

Sakura had a lot of untapped strength with her potential to build strength rivaled to many male Genins or even Jonins, that Kakashi could tell. Well it was easy from how she could punch Naruto and cause severe bruising on a Jinchūriki that could heal inhumanly fast.

However, he had no idea on how to make her strength become her assert, not with that girl insisting on dieting, causing her to contain little muscles in her bones. Seemed like girls strangely had an obsession with looking slender. Yoshiko naturally had a long slender body and lean muscles which meant that strength training for her to build muscles for significant strength was futile. Sakura was not ready to achieve her fullest potential yet. He was not going to sacrifice his poor student like a helpless lamb to a green spandex Jonin.

Thoughts about his little band of misfits aside, Kakashi hoped to be able to return home soon once the day was over. Zabuza had strangely not returned for a Round 2 fight, neither had his accomplice. Kakashi knew that he had to be on guard in the event that Zabuza decided to attack on the opening ceremony of the bridge.

Kakashi had asked the little poison specialist on the poisons she had used on Zabuza. She had quickly replied that she would be surprised if Zabuza could even move from his bed in this whole month. She had given him six syringes full of poison. Unlike the belief that she had only used one poison, she had poisoned Zabuza with three different types of poisons.

It was non-fatal and not too complex due to her current mastery at poison-making but she had made sure that the one of the ingredients in the antidotes clashed with one another should Zabuza's apprentice managed to find the antidote of two of the poisons. For the third, Yoshiko had laughed and said it required something that the Nara would never had sold: the deer velvet and the roots of the Golden Flower. Deer velvet was what that would have stabilized the other two poisons while the third was being neutralized by the roots.

Kakashi was indeed impressed by her genius leveled prowess in the art of poison-making. So the three poisons had similar antidotes but the final ingredient to her infamous sleep potion required deer velvet to stabilize the other two before it could even work. That was clever. Highly amused by the sheer devilish way in which she poisoned Zabuza, Kakashi too pitied the man who underestimated a little girl's abilities. Yoshiko was on her way to become a scary woman indeed.

~Page Break~

Haku felt a lot of pity for his master as well as a slight sense of helplessness at his plight. Whatever the Konoha ninja had injected him with had left his master confined to his room for weeks. Haku had tried his best to neutralize the poison. So far his attempts had all ended in failure. That in itself, meant that the poisoner was a master in that field. Haku knew that should that poisoner wished his master dead, it would be extremely easy given his level of mastery and the sheer complexity in the poison he had used. Haku was not sure who exactly had poisoned Zabuza, but he knew that person was merciful. The poison was meant to cause havoc and inconvenience to his master and not to kill him.

Haku had wanted to confront the Konoha ninja and get the antidote, he had wanted to make sure that his master was safe. Personally, he'd disagreed with that cause of action and distrusted Gato but he knew that Zabuza needed the money to support the cause of overthrowing Yagura's reign of the Bloody Mist. Mei Terumi, the one in charge of the underground rebellion had tasked Zabuza with the collection of funds. Zabuza's pride had prevented him when going to the Konoha team.

Haku felt that should he showed the Leaf Ninjas that they were not the enemies, the poisoner might choose to provide the antidote if they were not threats to their mission. The Leaf Ninja would not be attacked by them and Zabuza would not be suffering from the effects of the poison with the least bloodshed between the two groups. It was a win-win solution. Another confrontation with the Leaf Ninja was disadvantageous with the infamous Copy-Ninja, Zabuza was severely weakened and would not be a match for the other Jonin at full strength. With that, Haku vanished from the underground hideout in a swirl of mist.

~Page Break~

The bridge naming ceremony was annoying. With most of the people and the Daimiyo around, it was extremely crowded and full of chatter. Noise gave Yoshiko a headache and the fact that she was forced to endure through the whole 2 hours was plain annoying. Gato had not dared confront them, not with half of his forces still busy licking the wounds Team 7 had so generously given without the help of their Jonin sensei gave them. Others she had assisted in poisoning them or impaling them with her needles or her shadow technique to keep them in place for Naruto's punches for target practice.

Secretly, Yoshiko wondered what the hell happened to Zabuza. Most ninja would be forced to a diet of only baby food and a baby's lifestyle for a month; however, Zabuza was not most ninja. Still she hoped that the man would take his anger out on that swine of a businessman and not her. An angry elite assassin was not what she wanted to face, heck, she was not even the type for combat! She was back-up! Chances were that she would hide behind Kakashi or run away before that happened. Shikamaru and her were both equal contenders on the prize of number one at running away.

The girl was sticking to the corner of the ceremony, perched atop the tallest branch of another tree and reading her book lazily with a scowling Uchiha on a lower brunch, hidden amongst leaves for camouflage. He had been hiding on the top branch from Sakura when Yoshiko came and pushed him off the tree. Sasuke had been caught off guard and promptly went tumbling down the foliage of the upper canopy in the tree. Yoshiko had burst out laughing when two nestlings popped out of his hair and started chirping. Apparently resting on his head earlier was a bird's nest. He had to bear the brunt of her jokes while she removed the nestlings. It reminded him slightly of the times they had before that Thing happened and her decision to slot herself into the Medical Corps.

Sakura had been searching high and low for him. Hn, she was not looking up high enough. But Sasuke was not going to complain. A day without that rabid fangirl who was eagerly screaming in his ears was highly welcomed. Sasuke looked around for his sensei. The silver haired man was currently reading like Yoshiko, except he was busy fending off numerous women who were paying him a little too much attention. Sasuke gave a slight smirk when he witnessed the futile attempts of flirting by the women.

~Page Break~

Kakashi could sense the presence of another upper-leveled ninja near him, observing him. Unlike the other four cute little Genins, he had not been fooled by the Shadow Clone he left to attend the ceremony. Without a doubt, it was Zabuza's little apprentice and the one that tricked them of Zabuza's supposed death.

"Come on out," Kakashi said lazily, although his body suggested differently. That boy was at least an ex-Hunter ninja and the assassination corps of the Mist was not to be trifled with.

The boy came out of his hiding spot, with his mask on and all that. He was guarded like Kakashi was. Kakashi had a slight inkling on what this boy had come for, but it was better to reconfirm matters. Putting away his book, he looked up to acknowledge the boy.

"Hatake-san, I would like to request for the antidote of the poison that you have poisoned my master with. I assure that we will not attack you and your company. We've already broken off the contract with Gato, we are not your enemies now." The boy jumped into business quickly by taking off his mask and making his request known. Had Kakashi hadn't known that he was a boy, he would have mistaken him for a female with the feminine appearance he had.

How interesting, they thought I was the poisoner. Kakashi felt slight amusement at having to tell the Hunter-Ninja that he was barking up the wrong tree. A Jonin was not responsible for the poisoning but a Genin had. A Genin had bested Zabuza. Well with his help anyway. That ninja's arrogance could be his downfall via underestimating a less powerful opponent.

"I would have to tell you that you are asking the wrong person. It would be the Medic of the team you should be asking." Kakashi waited for the boy's reaction. The boy remained expressionless and instead vanished in a swirl of mist.

~Page Break~

Yoshiko was not pleasantly surprised when a girl appeared in front of her while she was eating the free mochi being given out. She had not been using her sensory techniques, hence being caught off guard and placed in a rather humiliating position when she gave out a rather girly scream.

Naruto had came running when he heard her scream from the ramen side of the buffet table which was the nearest to the mochi section. Naruto had began laughing at her and pointed at her, "Hehehehe Yoshiko-chan, you're scared so easily ttaebayo. Oh, hi Haku!" He practically hollered much to the embarrassment of the Nara who proceeded to mention of troublesome he was being.

Yoshiko turned back at the girl, now named Haku, raising an eyebrow at her sudden appearance. A Shinobi definitely, wait that chakra was familiar... Where had she sensed it? Yoshiko could remember one's chakra signature if she was familiar with them but strangers was difficult for her as she would associate the texture and the feel with that person's personality.

"Naruto, you're familiar with her?" Yoshiko asked the blonde curiously. Naruto had a talent for making many friends, hence she was not surprised at that affirmation. Hell, he had managed to get her brother, the laziest kid she knew to play a game of ninja with him.

"Yep, that's Haku." Naruto chirped back, almost eager to speak to this Haku who was looking at him with an amused smile. Yoshiko wouldn't put it past Naruto to have developed a crush on that pretty older girl.

"Yoshiko-san, is it? I would like to speak to you alone." The girl said before motioning towards the secluded area hidden by the trees. Yoshiko raised her eyebrows again before she complained slightly on how troublesome it was. Well, she begrudgingly followed the older girl to the meeting spot; never lowering her guard. Something about this girl rubbed her the wrong way, her chakra was familiar but she could yet to figure out where and when she came into contact with that chakra.

Haku turned to her once she was sure that Naruto was not in the heading range of their conversation. Still Yoshiko made sure to keep her chakra flared to inform their team leader of their location. Should anything go wrong, he would be the first to know and respond.

"Yoshiko-san, I would like to request the antidote of your poison to cure my master." Yoshiko jumped into action and trapped her with her Shadow Possession Technique.

"Shadow Possession Technique, success." So that was the fake Hunter ninja that they ran into, Zabuza's little minion. Yoshiko was wary, she was out of her league here and at a severe disadvantage if Kakashi don't come running and rescuing her soon.

She sent a flare of panic in her chakra to the leader of the team, praying fervently that he would respond. She still had her poisons, but without knowing her enemy's abilities and that the fact that she was up against a Jonin-leveled ninja, close contact was a strict no-no for her.

"Relax, I'm not here to fight. I wish to tell you that Zabuza-san and I are no longer working for Gato." Haku quickly said before continuing, "I hope that we may move elsewhere to negotiate, Nara-san." Yoshiko eyed the older girl uneasily, there wasn't any sign of offense in her body language... Fine, she would take a chance. Knowing Kakashi, he would be arriving soon, give or take a few minutes.

Haku made no move to fight the Shadow Possession while Yoshiko moved them under the shade of trees and towards the source of Kakashi's chakra that she had picked up upon. The shadow was the Nara's friend and Yoshiko would have a huge advantage with the shadows on her side should the negotiations sour.

"Haku-san, as you have figured, I was the one who poisoned Momochi-san and I am very much aware that no antidote that you have tried worked. Am I right in my assumption?" Yoshiko needed to know that she had the upper hand and that she had leverage against the Hunter-ninja. Probably, Haku was unaware that Zabuza would not actually die of that poison, it was administered simply to keep him at bay. Finally, it seemed like the Hunter-ninja had not detected three different but similar poisons laying siege on her master's body. But that little bit of information was going to stay with her.

Haku nodded to show that she was correct. "Hence, I would like to request for the antidote of that poison. We will not attack the bridge builder or your team as we will return to the Land of Water once Zabuza has recovered." Haku finished simply.

Yoshiko felt that she might be able to take that girl's word for it. Plus it was troublesome and worrisome if they had to be wary of an attack from a furious and vengeful Zabuza on their way home. She would obviously refuse to treat the man herself; one, it was too dangerous and two, Haku might put two and two together and figure out the poisons' properties. She would have to hand Zabuza half the exact amount of antidote that had to be consumed to make sure that he finished all of it in one sitting and hence the best way was to instruct Haku to feed Zabuza the antidote in different orders, pretending that they were all for one poison.

Surprisingly enough, Haku had obliged and had not felt the least bit suspicious on her weird instructions. Well, she was supposed to be the doctor here...hence, she concludes that the older girl was not a medical ninja but had basic knowledge on medicine.

As Haku was preparing to leave after being handed the antidote, she suddenly turned round and said, "by the way, I'm a boy." At that statement, Yoshiko was left gaping like a fish at that girl-no boy with an extremely feminine appearance.


End file.
